Forbidden temple - A tale of two days (A how to lose at Warmachine special)

Game one - Vs Khador (Campbell)

Welcome back to "How to lose at Warmachine", my ongoing report on how badly I suck at this game and how infuriating it is to get beaten all the time. Learn from my mistakes and bathe in the wisdom of defeat!

The forbidden temple in sunny Napier was the first "away" tournament I have been to. Astute readers will note that it is also only the second tournament I have been to. Last time I placed 20th out of 28 people, so I was eager not to do any worse.

The venue was fantastic, Jambo games (If you are in NZ I recommend checking out their site) had enough tables in the store to host the tourney and gave everyone a 10% discount on their already very reasonable prices.

The List

Well, you may have noticed from my two previous posts that I had planned on taking a certain list, and that I had changed it the night before and had to do some quick painting.

I finally settled on

Siege, with Minuteman and Centurion
Journeyman with Defender
6 Sword Knights

The idea was the Centurion would anchor the line (With polarity field and arcane shield) while Siege and the Defender shot things up. The Sword Knights would counter attack and the Minuteman would be my fast moving reserve. The list actually worked as planned and I thought I had a pretty good tourney.... but on to the matches

DAY ONE - THE DAY OF AWESOMENESS

Game one - VS. eSorcha (Campbell)

First up, let me say that the tables looked good, but the scenery in most matches meant diddly squat. The two pictures above show that nicely. From the models perspective all you can see is WIDE OPEN SPACES. I would not have wanted to play Circle on these tables.

Across the table from me was Campbell, who seemed like a very nice chap who had only recently started with the hobby. He was fielding a big unit of winter guard, three heavy jacks and a Manhunter. A lot of armour, even for Mr Siege to deal with and attrition looked like it would not be a good idea. I figured my best option was to move onto the edge of the objective area, park and shoot. I was hoping that eSorcha would come within 17" of Siege so I could shoot her in the face.

Fortunately for me this is exactly what happened.

Three turns into the game Campbell advanced his jack wall towards the Centurion (Being unable to charge it he was hesitant to run straight at it). Sorcha stood behind this wall of jacks thinking they would protect her.

One spell later and Sorcha's jack wall was sitting in a fox hole not blocking her. Siege used his feat, fired a rocket and nearly killed her outright. An aimed shot from the Defender and she was toast.

So a quick win by Assassination to start the day. I always feel a bit bad winning with foxhole as it seems a bit cheap. But a fair win is a fair win.

Game Two - VS. Scaverous (Mike O)

Mikes custom bases are amazing

Game two and Mike quietly informs me he on a losing streak of about 30 games. This makes me feel quite confident, that was my first mistake.

Mike is fielding Scaverous, A Reaper, A Seether, a bonejack, a witch and a big unit of Bane thralls.

The game starts well for me with some good tactical shooting that removes the bonejack and a rather unimpressive feat turn from Scaverous.

The Centurion is proving once again to be a pain and comfortably shrugs off an attempt from the Reaper to harpoon him. Scaverous ends up exposed and I send the Centurion in to give him a beating.

This is when things go belly up.

The Centurion does little (One hit from 4) and the Seether proceeds to rip my Minuteman to shreds. Bane Thralls and Scaverous rip the Centurion to pieces along with my sword knights. The Thralls also engage my Defender.

So all of a sudden Siege is left with a Defender and Junior and is charged by 5 Bane Thralls (4 of whom get in range). Needing an 8 to hit with four attacks Mikes dice desert him and Siege is left feeling rather healthy, only taking one hit.

Next turn Siege kills all the Banes (7 Attacks!) and frees the Defender up for a boosted shot on Scaverous.

BOOM, nothing but net.

For a guy who said he 'play and lost so many games in a row, he should have won this one. The dice gods conspired against him at the worst possible moment. (I can report he did not go winless through the whole tournament though)

Game Three- VS. pKaya (Adam)

There are some match ups that just aren't good for one player or another. Adam was playing a high mobility hit and run force with Warpwolves and teleporting stones. I was running a Centurion with polarity field and a Defender that really hates teleporting stones.

I parked in his objective and sat comfortably behind the Centurion. I was doing my own hit and run with the Minuteman who killed the Gallows grove and damaged one of his wolves.

In the end, after much manoeuvre (met by Defender fire) the wolves just ran into melee with the Centurion, where Sieges feat and flanking Sword knights chopped them into bloody piles of dog meat. The game ended with Kaya being charged by the Centurion after every other model had been killed.

In this case I was lucky to have the perfect rock to go against this set of scissors.

Game Four- VS. pVayl (Marc)

In case you don't know, I hate playing against Legion. I find legion to be the force that has an easy answer to just about everything I do. They seem to be able to out manoeuvre, out shoot and out spell me. I mainly blame Chris P for this sense of impending dread when I see legion across the table from me.

As far as legion match ups went I thought I had a good one here. The Raptors relied on shooting and I could grant my infantry cover. If I could pick them off one by one I could use my Jacks and Knights to bring down the Beasts.

As you can see from the pic to your left the Centurion stayed way out in front while everyone hung out in Sieges fox hole. Mr Minuteman was on hit and run duties and accounted for at least one or two Raptors.

The plan worked really well. With the Raptors picked off by shooting I really had to deal only with the beasts and the caster.

It was all looking good until I over extended myself and the Angelius swept down on Siege. I thought I was toast as the Angelius smashed into Siege doing 17 points total damage.

Yep Siege survived on one damage box. Vayl unfortunately got pinned in melee by Sword Knights and hacked into tiny cube chunks of blight. Marc played very well and deserved to win this game, but as Baker says "If in doubt, steal a win"

Another game where dice came up good for me.... however my luck would soon change

Game Five- VS. Xerxes (Daniel)

Fantastic paint work

This list of Daniels must have been a nightmare for many of his opponents. A Bronzeback, a big unit of super tough heavy infantry and an Archidon for speed. It was a big nasty wall of death.

Our forces met around one objective (The other saw a strange aerial fight between the Minuteman and Archidon that ended with the Archidon frenzying and charging his own dudes) and locked into combat with the Bronzeback holding back.

This was a close game, and really I lost on a rookie mistake. I needed to do two more boxes of damage to one of his infantry, which would have freed up my Centurion to slam his Bronzeback off the objective for the win.

In my stupidity I forgot they had reach and ended up being pinned in melee.

Then Daniel pulled a move for the ages. The Bronzeback charged Xerxes and used his animus to move around my Centurion to attack Siege. It was a thing of disturbing beauty to watch this Bronzeback run amok. What was a desperation move on Daniels part proved to be an absolute game winner.

A great game that was sadly let down by the dumb scenario that neither of us liked. It's hard to cover objectives on two sides of the board with 25 points.

Game Six - VS. Kallus (Rob VDW)

My punishment for losing was to play Legion again. WEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

This is the game of the weekend where I really feel I was out played and totally deserved to lose. First of all I didn't read the scenario well enough and didn't realise that you could only score off each objective once. I tried to hold both with split my forces.

Secondly, I wasted my feat leaving Rob in a good position to counter attack.

Thirdly, Rob used his feat well. He got up in my grill early and said "go on, kill my troopers, I dare you"

I even did some mediocre sportsmanship and wouldn't let Rob take back an action (Admittedly he had declared a charge and measured it before remembering he hadn't cast a spell on his previous activation). This was a charge attack that would have won him the game so I didn't feel too bad about it.

The key lesson for me in this game was read the damm scenario. If I only had to hold one objective to stop him getting two points I would have bunkered my Centurion down on one obejective as opposed to splitting up and trying to cover both (as shown in picture)

Game Seven - VS. pSeverus (Alex the lucky bastard)


First up, look at this picture. See that body of deep water? That was in front of my deployment area, the only time terrain had an impact on a game and it was freaking deep water right in front of the objectives. 



This picture is the aftermath of what must be the most tin ass ending to a Warmachine game ever. By all logic I had Alex on the ropes. His infantry unit had 2 guys left (passed a morale check), his caster was wounded and pinned in melee by a Sword Knight and a Centurion. His Guardian had 4 or 5 damage boxes left and all systems crippled except cortex. His Repenter was out of position and Severius was injured.

My Centurion was undamaged, as was the Minuteman. Siege was in cover with 10 health and my Jnr had lost his Defender but was 100% fine. Sevy had used his feat and Siege had 0 focus.

Here is how his turn went.

Assign 1 focus to the Guardian and Repenter, keep the rest on the caster.

Guardian attacks with its crippled pike and boosts, getting a double and throwing the centurion away
Repenter flames Severius, missing him and killing the Sword Knight pinning him
Zealot run near to Siege
Severius casts ashes to ashes on his own guy, damage arcs to Siege and he boosts rolling a 16, the exact amount required to kill him

Funny sunny stuff.

You don't mind being beaten by one in a million shots and Alex promptly exploded into laughter (The good kind, not the a**hole HAHAHA I BEAT YOU kind)

Stuff like this is why you play the game!

Alex was also a hoot to play against, probably the most fun game of the weekend.

CONCLUSIONS

I had a blast and I really enjoyed the format as it created a whole new set of issues to deal with and you had to pick a  list that could take on all opponents. Some of the scenarios and table set ups leaved a lot to be desired, but that will get better next time I'm sure.

The games were good, the company was good and overall a great time.

Special thanks to Chris O for organising the accommodation and travel and to Tom for doing all the driving! Cheers guys!