Wednesday, July 9, 2014

TaTaPe warmachine tournament day 2

I had to travel 150 kilometres to play against a player from my own town. And not only that - it was exactly the same list I had taken a sorry beating from with Morvahna2 some weeks earlier.

Well. I guess it was time for rematch, as the opponent had Vayl1 and Saeryn as possible choices, and both lists had a disturbing number of heavy warbeasts. Morvahna1 just would not remove that many beasts even as little as my Morvahna2 list did.

Opponent picked Saeryn. List was:
- 2x Angelius
- 2x Scythean
- Afflictor
- Raek

2x Forsaken
2x Shepherd
2x Deathstalker
Spell Martyr

Scenario was Two Fronts. At least this time around the scenario was a bit easier to contest for me.

I forgot to take pictures from the couple of first turns, but the situation in the first is this: Legion wins starting roll, but chooses to go second. I was thinking of trying to dominate my own zone with Morvahna, but this time I'd bring more than enough models to at least challenge enemy zone. Things looked pretty good, because quite few models were coming to my friendly zone.

Saeryn used her feat on second turn, and angelius came and killed Pureblood Warpwolf outright, and came to engage Gnarlhorn Satyr with Overtake. Pureblood had earlier attempted to spray Raek and Afflictor, and succeeded in dealing good damage in. In the picture I can't attack any of the opposing warbeasts, but despite that annoying feat I had managed to kill Raek with Stone Keeper and Blackclad Wayfarer. Blackclad Wayfarer rolled double sixes for damage.

Morvahna cast Sunder Spirit on Scythean as many times as possible. Afterwards Winter Argus came to spray Scythean. Damage rolls weren't all that good, and only branch that broke down was Body. Well, I would have liked Spirit or Mind more, but I guess Body was good too, since I could teleport Gallows Grove forward to deny healing. Oh, wait... their CMD is 3, not 4. Damn it, I always mix up those two.

Ravagers chargedand ran, but the only models I could charge were the objective and... umm, that's it. But at least I scored a control point from destroying it.

Next turn was brutal. A scythean on right killed Gnarlhorn, an angelius killed Gorax and the now healed Scythean killed Winter Argus. All warbeasts... gone. Gone.

Not only that, but most of the infantry was gone too. Saeryn had also cast Breath Stealer on Ravagers and was camping three Fury.

So I was not able to assassinate Saeryn, but at least I could try to make an amazing amount of damage.

Morvahna uses her feat and then charges Scythean by herself. I had planned on ramming Scythean up to Angelius and by using Life Trader I'd kill both of them, and then hopefully whatever was left of my troops would kill a third beast.

In this game I learned that you cannot boost damage on mount attacks. That much for ramming, but at least Morvahna destroyed the Scythean despite some very poor rolls.

Wolves and Ravagers did manage to kill an angelius, but it was nowhere near enough to keep me playing. Opponent had two heavy warbeasts, one of which was flying and had armor piercing special attack, and there I had a warlock on large base with only a couple of hit points left...

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Saeryn is a tough one.


Game 2:

Last game was against Four Star Syndicate led by Gorten Grundback. I had never played against Gorten before, so I was quite happy. Two completely new warcasters during one tournament.

However... I was not that happy about the fact that there was a colossal around, the Ghordson Earthbreaker. So epic Morvahna it was again.

Gorten had:
- Ghordson Earthbreaker

Maximum unit of Kayazy Assassins + Underboss
2x Kayazy Eliminators
Gorman diWulfe
Orin Midwinter
Ragman
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord
Thor Steinhammer
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw
- Bull Snapper


And scenario was Balance of Power. Circle got to start the game.

As I was reading Gorten's card a bit I realised how bad scenario this was for me. Gorten just had to bring the colossal to contest the zone, and possibly even score a couple scenario points with his feat pushing away my models from the zone.

So... everything ran as fast forward as possible. The colossal came so close that I thought I might be able to wreck it with Ravagers, Pureblood and Gnarlhorn.

Blackclad Wayfarer activated first an managed to score a hit with Hunter's Mark. I would have really wanted to use Primal on Pureblood Warpwolf, but 11.5" looked like it might just be in range, or it might just be a little bit out. I could not risk on not getting a charge in, so Morvahna cast Bounding on Pureblood instead - after casting Purification and removing Spiny Growth from Earthbreaker.

With Hunter's Mark and Bounding it was a clear charge right into Earthbreaker, and Pureblood warped for strength. It wrecked the right field of fire all by itself.

Then Gnarlhorn activated, and again 11.5" was in the range of possibility to fail the charge. It used Bounding on itself and then charged in, not performing nearly as well as Pureblood. Though if we're completely honest, Gnarlhorn had two Fury less to use. Earthbreaker was nearly broken, and I thought that even with below average rolls two Tharn Ravagers would finish it with overkill. One Ravager in the might have been within 13" of Earthbreaker, but it looked so uncertain that I rather took a successful charge against Kayazy Assassins.

So... which one is more important? Dealing the last box of damage to a colossal, or getting an attack against def 17 Kayazy?

Ghordson Earthbreaker was left with one box remaining. One goddamn box! I really should have risked the one charge.

Other Ravagers didn't even decimate the Kayazy, but at least they got a couple of attacks in.

Next Gorten uses his feat.

And yet again I lose both of my heavy warbeasts in one round. Though what was to be expected when colossal was left standing... the good thing here was that Thor Steinhammer had to use his activation in repairing Earthbreaker instead of Tune Up. He repaired five boxes, and which meant that every single system was fully funchional again.

The colossal advanced and slapped Pureblood a bit. Then Ragman advanced and cast Death Field. Not too many of my models were within Earthbreaker's reach, but two of them were Pureblood Warpwolf and Gnarlhorn Satyr.

"Yum yum!" said Snapjaw and Gnarlhorn was no more.

"Yum yum!" said even Kayazy Assassins, and Pureblood was no more.

One unit of Eliminators ran to engage Morvahna.

As Earthbreaker didn't have Spiny Growth on right now, Morvahna decided to skip Purification this turn, especially when Wolves of Orboros failed to kill even one of the Eliminators engaging Morvahna, though they got back strike bonuses with 2-man Combined Melee Attacks! First she cast Carnivore on herself and killed the Eliminators herself, boosting attacks. Then she cast Carnivore on Tharn Ravagers. I thought hitting Kayazy was more important than gaining a heart token from them if I rolled 9+ (they had pathfinder song from Rhupert on)

Other Wolves of Orboros tried to do something useful, and they did manage to get rid of the other, less important Eliminator unit.

Thanks to speed penalties from Gorten's feat no Ravagers could get to attack Earthbreaker, but with Carnivore on they did quite good job on removing Kayazy Assassins.

However... the last model to activate was Winter Argus. That was the only one I could get to attack colossal.

Following the grand tradition of doing what the heavy beasts cannot it wrecked Ghordson Earthbreaker. Okay, it had only about six boxes left, but still. Jokingly I said that this Winter Argus was in flames in this tournament.

Well, that was about all I could do.

Gorten comes in for an assassination attempt and takes a hand cannon shot at Morvahna, dealing some 9 points of damage in. Luckily Wrong Eye charges in to Wolves of Orboros and eats a few of them to reduce the number of free strikes Snapjaw would take.

Then Snapjaw tramples, and here I was hoping that the beast would succeed in every single attack roll. But it succeeded in only one.

Snapjaw buys a boosted attack that would kill Morvahna, but she transfers the damage away. Snapjaw has enough Fury for one more unboosted attack, which hits but does not kill Morvahna.

Things were starting to get desperate on both sides. Morvahna upkept Carnivore on Winter Argus, who dislodged a Ravager and Ravager White Mane from melee by killing two Kayazy Assassins with both Primal and Carnivore on. One of the assassins was in way of one more charge, anyway.

White Mane charges Gorman to free Ravager Chieftain, but this is where I noticed a fire token on White Mane. He had been set on fire by Thor Steinhammer's spray. And of course the old berserk died right there and then.

In the end I got only three Ravagers to charge Gorten. Still I was quite sure that three P+S 15 charge attacks would kill a warcaster with only a few focus points in camp. I ask armor and it's... 22. Just... what? Assassination didn't seem that sure any more. I might have been able to squeeze in a couple of awkward attacks with Wolves of Orboros, but I doubt they would have got through that high armor, because pure charge attacks looked impossible.

Well. It was time to roll some dice. Second Ravager failed horribly, but Morvahna's re-rolls saved the situation. Last Ravager rolls high enough to kill that sturdy dwarf.

Phew.

All in all it was a really nice tournament, though I made some pretty stupid and easy mistakes. I'm starting to see why it might be a good idea to practice your list before you enter a tournament. But that just feels... wrong.

Well, at the end of this month there is the Ropecon event where is some warmachine tournaments. We'll see if I change my habits by then.

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