How to "come 5th" at Warmachine - The final day of NZ nationals

Day three - eNemo laughs at your collosals!

I decided after day two that I had no show of winning the tournament (not that that had figured in to my calculations, but on day one I was looking pretty good), so I decided to play eNemo in both games this day, regardless of what my opponents list was. It turned out to be an awesome decision and eNemo turned out to be a blast to play with.

5 warjacks, with a potential 23 focus to spend on his feat turn, how can you not like this.

Game eight vs Magnus the traitor with Mercs (Scott A)

Artists impression of Scott at his old job

Scott is a very good Warmachine player (ranked 3rd in NZ) and a damm fine bloke too. He could be described as a big square jawed ex-copper..... cause that's what is.

Anyway, when I ran into Scott in the morning he was in bad shape. Two things had happened to him in this tournament.

One, his dice rolls were so bad on day two that he threw them away and bought new ones.

Two, he had commiserated his bad day two by having a few too many brews the night before. A couple a laughs and the game is under way.

Scott had the first turn and ran his force forward. Nyss hunters on the left flank, Galleon in centre, Magnus and jacks to the right. I decided to do something midnumbingly ballsy to see if it worked.

On my first turn eNemo advanced forward as far as he could and shot Galleon. he was standing, uncovered on a hill 10 inches away from Galleon, but critically he was in the left arc. I fired my tractor beam effect that locked Galleon in place and then tried to cover Nemo with jacks to prevent the eventual counter attack.


The Warmachine gods clearly did not like Scott this day as absolutely nothing went his way, and I mean nothing.

On his turn everything missed or did minimal damage asides from Galleon impaling the Minuteman that hadnt got out of his left flank. The Nyss hunters completely missed my trencher commandos in melee. Not one hit on 6+ with 6 or 7 attempts (some Nyss got grenaded earlier). The nomad couldnt kill my Ironcad and the Renegades wiffed with their rockets. 

It was well sad.

In my turn I fluffed about trying to be clever before realising an assassination was on the cards. Under Nemos feat he scratched the Nomad before giving up and letting the Ironclad kill it. Magnus was behind a cloud effect and i moved my charger into the cloud to shoot him. Then my 2nd ironclad charged the renegade and earthquaked it, nemo and gorman down. (yep, realised i should have done that first). Minuteman then flak fielded Gorman to death.

Magnus was knocked down and on about 3 or 4 boxes, one good hit and he was smoked. I had one jack left and it was the stormclad and I was out of charge range. Then i remembered the damm thing has a short range gun. Advanced and kill Magnus. 

Total causalities were one Trencher Commando who died on my turn to a free strike to free up the Stormclad's move. 

The finale - Sorry about the blurry shot but you can see magnus surrounded by Warjacks just to the right of galleon

I would bet on Scott to win nine times out of ten in a match up with me. He's very very good, but it doesn't matter how good you are when absolutely nothing works out for you. 

Took the loss like a champ, always got time to play against Scott as its always fun.

Result - Magnus get pack mauled by warjacks Score 2-2 for this competition (4-3 overall)

Game Nine vs Kraye and Cygnar (Richard T)

The battle for Cygnar supremacy came down to an unlikely matchup. Super horseman Kraye vs Electro-nutcase-Geriatric eNemo!

I play and talk to Richard a fair bit as he's one of the other Cygnar players in Wellington. We are one spot apart on Rankings HQ and tend to finish in similar positions in tournaments, so it seemed only fair that we would throw down to determine who was the CHAMPION CYGNAR PLAYER!!!!!!!

Seriously though, neither Richard or I think we are particularly good at this game and were both surprised to see the other had done so well at the weekend. 

I image a lot of Cygnar vs Cygnar games are dull affairs with each side staying just on the edge of shooting threat range and exchanging defender/gun mage/long gunner fire.

This was nothing like that, it was a swinging game of move and counter move with one really annoying bit of forest to jump around.

The game settled down into an attritional affair, with me trying to slow down the Stormclad by feeding him Ironclads, and Richard trying to lock down an Assassination run on Nemo.

In the end, attrition went my way with some good tactical strikes. The turn below shows the decisive round.

The stormcaller on the left kept disrupting the hunter by the objective. From here on in, that jack never gained focus, which caused Richard no end of annoyance. Nemo energized the charger left around the forest, stormclad forwards and the barely functional ironclad into the rubble in-front of Richards Stormclad.

The charger boosted two shots into the Journeyman caster, hitting with the 2nd and blowing him away. This dropped arcane shield from Stormwall. My Stormclad, with +2 strength now engaged the 19 armour Stormwall. 4 hits later and one entire side was wrecked. oh, and lightning had murdered all the support crews in b2b with Stormwall.

Richard then rolled the dice on an assassination run with Kraye and missed his shots. It wasn't a high percentage run and I think Richard had psyched himself out a little. He could have used the focus to absolutely destroy my Stormclad with his, but went for the harder quick win. One more turn of attrition and I would have been reduced to nemo and the charger.

Stormclad eyes up Stormwall - you ain't so tough

Result - Richard concedes and does not play the final turn  Score 3-2 for this competition (5-3 overall)

Conclusions


A good time had by all.... well by most.... one of my friends had a pretty dire weekend and played some games that did not sound remotely fun. He was pretty unimpressed with the attitude of some of the players, and from what was said, i completely understand why. I'm glad I didn't play them as the vast majority of my games were good times. (Except round 3 where I brain farted vs Mike T and probably made that round not much fun at all).

Thanks again to Chris O (Palerel) for doing the mostly thankless task of geek wrangling, and to Mike for driving me all three days to the tourney!

So good enough for 5th place apparently! Go me! That's like a pewter medal or something? Tin? Aluminium?

Can I make my own medal out of a coke can?

How to "win" at Warmachine? The NZ Nationals Day Two

Day Two - The day of fail

So when we left our intrepid adventurer he had somehow managed to beat three really good players and burgle his way into the top tier for days two and three.

personally, I think the reason I made it to day two was that my eCaine list is very good against certain match-ups, and I got to play those match-ups (and not fail)

Round Five vs eSorcha and Khador (Rick T)

Turtle vs Death star...... that doesn't sound fair at all. 

This was a very close game and by far the longest game I played in the tournament. Rick needs to tighten up his time management skills a smidge, as he was deathclocked in one game and came perilously close to be clocked against me.

My list was a little wacky but loads of fun. pHaley sitting inside her bubble with a defender and a stormstrider, with Precursor Knights as the counter punch unit. Out in front of the bubble ranges a hunter, a grenadier and some chain guns. For 2 points the humble chain gun is an annoyance that is very difficult to remove with shooting, and on occasion, does a bucket load of damage.

The grenadier had a bit of a blinder in this game, accounting for an awful lot of the Death Star with its incredibly accurate blast weapons. Temp bubble + Trencher Gunner + Standing still gives the Grenadier effectively rat 12??? and 3 shots at pow 12 (with focus for boosts from haley) and you have a pretty cheap, very effectively little package.

I adopted my standard anti-collosal tactic is this game...... ignore the big stupid thing and shoot the caster instead.

Lordy that worked well here, Sorcha ran forward, used her feat, wiffed most of her armies attacks asides from one good shot on the Storm Strider (which blew it up in one shot..... ouch). Then, stuff happened, and not good stuff.....

Die you frigid cow DIE!

You see this pic... this is the second round of shooting I had against Sorcha. You see on turn one I hit her with everything, including the kitchen sink under blitz. Shot after shot smacked into her and did a whopping X-1 damage (X being her life total).

Yep, 1 life left and then the turn above. Rick, at this point is on 4 minutes time left.

After going for Glory, Haley got collosal fist to face. 

I ask myself the question, do I go for the kill shot? Or do I run Haley away, camp focus and be a giant douche and let Rick time himself out.

Kill shot ordered! One damage needed, 5 rolls on 3 dice needing one 12 to hit.......

Miss, miss, reroll, miss, miss.  GODDAMIT TO HELL!!!!!!!!!

Next round Conquest applies fist to face, Rick ends with 90 secs on the clock.

Result: Haley gets big fist to face, Rick wins : Score 0-1 for this comp (3-2 overall)

Round Six Vs. The Coven and Cryx (Sean Lincoln)

So apparently the coven suck....... Lies I tell you, freaking lies.

What an amazing "caster" the coven is, something truly unique in the game. Sure, they aren't "blow you pants of OMFG awesome" like some top tier casters, but they allow for some very interesting timing rules as they can split their casting across multiple phases of one turn.

Sean used this to great effect one turn by activating one witch, casting a spell that granted ghostly to a  unit, charging with them, then activating the 2nd witch and casting the spell on another unit. Very clever, and very effective.

This game was attrition, pure and simple. Turn by turn, Sean and I dismantled each others forces until very little was left. The picture below shows all the models left in the battle on the last turn (asides from the coven, who were hiding far far away). Sean punched through with his barely alive arc node to deliver the final kill blow to haley, who had run out of focus trying to boost attacks to kill said arc-node.

Arc node..... why wont you die!

Sean and I both learned a lot from this game. Here are some of the key lessons.

• Terrain does not stop Cryx from doing anything ever. Ghostly units move through buildings....
• Don't forget chain guns, under temporal barrier they are effectively Rat 10 with 4-6 shots. 
• Pistol Wraiths suck.... shoot them in the face early and often. 
• However, having your pistol wraith shoot the Stormstrider just powers it up, it wasn't moving anywhere anyway and has 360 degree fire. Boosted striders are scary scary things.
• Explodey thralls make expensive units of precursors very very sad. 
• Haley has chain lightning, and always rolls a 6 for the number of jumps it makes. Satyxis do not enjoy this. 
• Always keep some focus on Haley so she can't be spelled to death. 

Result: Haley gets spell to face, Sean wins : Score 0-2 for this competition (3-3 overall)

Round three - Bye (Bonus pics)

Having lost both games I drew the bye round (we had a player go home sick, he came back for Day three though). I was quite tired and sore (I had been having tooth ache all weekend, three days after the tourney I got 3 wisdom teeth out... FUN!).

I used the time to take pics of the other players and stuff going on.

Oh yeah, I lsot every game i played this day..... so how to win at warmachine is still a long way away.

Chris P (legion) vs Sean (with venethrax this time)

Dans Awesome Hyperion vs one of the many Cygnar armies (not sure who's)

Trolls vs Mercs (M.White)  Poor Mr White had a horrid tournament

Gators vs Mercs

Another Cygnar player vs Petes Circle 

Richards Cygnar vs Matts Circle

Caseys gators vs Skorne (Chris Ford?)

Skorne vs  Menoth (Snook?)

More Cygnar vs Toms Khador

Theocratic crisis as Pope Chong takes on Cardinal Ginge 

More freaking Cygnar (Thomas C) vs Robs Legion

BONUS PICTURE OF SUCK

Why 40k sucks in one pic. Spam list, not painted...... this was the 40k tourney in a nutshell. 

How to lose at Warmachine - Nationals edition (Day one)

Well, this is going to be less of a "how to lose" session than normal, as I actually won more games than I lost.

Against my expectations, and probably that of a few others, I played pretty darned well and did pretty darned well. There was only one game where I thought "I have no freaking clue what i'm doing.... and in that game i was thoroughly roflstomped into the ground in no time flat".

Asides from that one horrid round, I thought I played competitively, and had a genuine chance at winning all the games I played.... Feeling groovy about the whole experience.

First up, a shout out to our local PG Chris O (Palarel) for a well run event. He had to wrangle 26 gamers, answer rules questions, do the draw and demo games to interested parties. Chris was sharp all weekend, so my thanks to him.

If I have a gripe at all, its about the venues ONE TOILET, WITH NO LOO PAPER! Yeah..... not the best plan when you have over 100 gamers in one building. I'd go as far to say it was "pants on head retarded".

DAY ONE!

Fly my pretties! 

So just a reminder, day one was pools of 6 player, top 3 went on to the big boys league, bottom 3 played for the wooden spoon. Strangely enough, this turned out to be a day of surprises and many people picked to get through to the top tables crashed and burned.

Honestly, it was nice to see the upsets happen and I think it's good for the hobby having different people winning.

To view my lists, see here.

Round one vs. Vayl2 and the Legion of Everblight (Rob VDW)

A brief bit of history. I suck against hordes factions most of the time. For the longest time I tried playing them the same way I would a Warmachine Faction: I would focus on creating an attack vector on the caster and try to blow his head off.

Time and again this didn't work vs. Hordes with their transfers, so I went back to the drawing board.

The answer: kill the beasts first, then assassinate the caster. With this in mind my eCaine list was born.

The plan was simple, attrition the enemy army with Caine and the gun mages, hold a zone with the Centurion and wait for an opening.

The key was the use of an early feat with Pendrakes creature targeting buff. In my second turn Caine shot down one heavy beast and virtually crippled a 2nd. This blunted Robs initial thrust and he never recovered.

Caine was a Warbeast slaying machine, accounting for 3 heavies and about 4 lights (Spawning pool was simply generating army points for Caine at the end)

This list was pretty much designed to kill legion, and it did a fantastic job of it (legion have been my nemesis). 

See that pile of legion on the right..... yeah... they're all dead...... 

This was probably Rob's worst game of the weekend. He is an exceedingly good player but this is a real example of how one list can be a perfect counter to another.

Result: Vayl runs away from Caine and we win on control points 6-0. Rob is left with Vayl, a shepard and a spawned Harrier....OUCH!  (Score so far 1-0)

Round two - Morvanna2 and the Circle of Orboros (Pete W)

Pete ended up winning the whole tournament, and is another excellent player. Unfortunately for him, I turned up with possibly Morvanna2's worst match up and it was still a very very close game.

Morvanna2 revolves around an endless stream of hurting and healing in order to power a lot of her awesome buffs.

Wolves to the left of me, Tharn to the right, Here I am, Stuck in the middle with you!

eCaine's feat on turn two destroyed Petes wolf men squad and "removed them from game". This was a big deal as it meant Morvanna couldn't bring them back with her feat. Without that, I seriously think Pete would have won this game comfortably.

I have a new respect for Tharn javelin chuckers with Prey, they ate my high defence infantry for breakfast. In the end the Tharn accounted for about 75% of my army with their accurate multiple attacks. Nasty stuff.

The picture below shows the finale. Caines def 20 vs Ranged and Magic attacks proving too hard to hit, and Morvanna eventually falling to the 5th pow 12 shot on Caine's activation.

All that remains at the end of the battle!

Any other match-up and I think Pete would have had my number, but the eCaine "HORDESLAYER" list comes up trumps again.

Result: Caine gets a non-feat assassination (Score so far 2-0)

Round Three - Gorten and Mercs (Mike T)

This was a total roflstomping on Mike’s part.

Have you ever played a game where as soon as you set up you go "wow, what the heck am I doing?"

Mikes amazing army, note, this is not from the game we played!

That was this game for me, the list simply didn't do anything and Mike played perfectly in the face of my ineptitude. He may only have killed 2 sword knights, but he won by 5 CP to Zero in round 3.

YEP, note to self. Stormwall needs support, also, against Gorten at least try to put it near an objective.... this will stop him pushing your entire army off the objectives during his feat turn.

Result: Gorten pushes my army off the objectives and has a snack, Mike wins!  (Score so far 2-1)

Round Four - Rask and the Blindwater Covenant (Casey)

Three Gatormen posse at 35 points, Yikes!

I've never asked why people call Casey the Italian Spiderman, but they do. It’s a unique nickname and you have to respect someone called the Italian Spiderman. You also have to respect that he is a sharp player who consistently places high in the NZ tournament scene.

We played once before, in a game that I thought I played out of my skin in (even though I lost). I was looking forward to the rematch and chose my HORDES REPELLANT list for 2 reasons.

Reason One!  I had won both games with it against good players

Reason Two! The previous game proved to me that my Stormwall list was not fun to play.

This game played remarkably like the game against Pete. There was some manoeuvring, the enemy Warlock tried to stay away from Caine, and Caine accounted for half the enemy army by himself.  This time however, the Centurion got to prove its value by taking out the Swamp horror (a critter very resilient to shooting) with a good solid spear to the face.

Caine is free, Rask isnt protected enough and rangers with the assist. 

In a repeat of the game vs. Pete the attrition game wore Casey down to the point where he had to bring his caster forward to help turn the tide of the battle, or at least to score some point.

Result:  Rask comes forward to try and score and cripple the Centurion, Caine wiggles free and shoot him down.  (Score so far 3-1)

Conclusion of Day One

So I ended up in the top pool, going 3-1 on the day. Pretty pleased with this and I’ve knocked over three of the better players in the tournament. Really enjoyed playing epic Caine, and still cannot win a game with Stormwall. 

eCaine worked really well, using his feat early to get an attrition edge and using caine himself as a deterrent to keep the enemy caster back was great. Rangers were gold with him, as were gun mages, and the Centurion proved to be a tough rock to move. Really looking forward to running him again!

Part two, coming soon!

A Call to Arms - (A how to lose a Warmachine special)

A Call to Arms – A How to lose at Warmachine special

First up, big shout outs to Sicarius for running an awesome event. We had great tables, good organisations, awesome prizes and all the good things you expect at an event like this. 

Well readers, let me say I had a tournament to forget.  Don’t get me wrong, I had a plenty good time and met some great people. My main lament is that I played about as well as a drunk panda with head trauma….. I could put it down to sickness but in the end, I simple didn’t play the game well as I hoped I would. Not the dice, nor the flu, but simply bone headed moves of dumbness that my excellent opponents capitalised on.

Also, heres a bonus shot of all the colossals that were at the tournament. It’s also worth noting that as a faction Cygnar came dead last….

I took two lists to the tournament but ended up playing the same one 6 times in 7 games. Funny how that always works out (I’ve now played Siege in 17 of the 21 games I’ve played at tournaments, time for a change?)

Game one vs. Chris Parkin (Legion)

Those of you who have read this column before may have seen my previous battle reports against Chris and his Legion (One and Two).  Let me assure you that this game went much the same way. 

Cygnar shoots…. Hit a few times…. Misses more…. Does some damage ….. absyolnnia heals them all ….. Legion eats Cygnar.

Chris has a nice relentless play style and I saw a few new tricks from him that I hadn’t seen previously. The Angelius Animus that repulses models is a game winner when you are playing scenarios.  I was playing pHaley backed up with storm knights, b13th, storm strider and support. I used my feat on a shooting round and whiffed. In retrospect I should have saved it for an assault round as when the storm knights did throw down with the Legion Beast they did respectable damage (Pendrake boosting their to hit rolls was a real asset).

Chris focussed on the objectives and easily scored a scenario victory and I really didn’t have an answer for him.

I removed my guys first, but thats what was waiting for me on the objectives

Result – Legion doesn’t eat all of Cygnar and instead scores the scenario win. 0-1

Game two vs Chris Otton (Cryx)

Sometime a game goes all one players’ way until the last dice roll when they lose. That was this game for Chris Otton. I took my Siege force with a Stormwall, Sentinal, Rangers and support units vs Denegra, thralls, Wraith engine and a trio of jacks.

Let me say that the Wraith Engine is awesome, both in appearance and effect. Incorporeal on a model that size is really annoying and the “I kill you, get a soul token, buy another attack and kill you” thing is just downright mean. Chris also proved that the best cure for a Stormwall is some debuffs and a group of weapon masters.

But check out this picture as it shows Chris’s one error and the dire position I was in. With an inert Sentinal, Siege, Reinholdt , one ranger and the Squire left on the field Chris Decided to park Denegra by the objective to get the additional victory points. Clouds and Stealth do not keep you safe from mage sight, Rat 10 and boosted Power 14 rocket shots.

Two smoking high heels later and Chris couldn’t believe he had thrown the game away. I mean, I was packing up as I thought the scenario was to 2 control points and not 3.

Sometimes you win a game, sometimes your opponent loses one. I can claim no real credit for this win but as baker says “if in doubt, steal a win”

Result- no control points but Siege chalked up another caster to his doom rockets (1-1)

Game three vs. Rick (Khador)

Speaking of bone headed moves, this game has one epic case of me saying “THAT DOES WHAT NOW?” and an assassination run that left many people in stitches laughing at my ass.

This game was going quite well for me. Siege had blown away the Khador reinforcements, Beast 09 was damaged badly and disrupted and my rangers and gun mages (reinforcements) had done a number on the Kyazy. All in all it was looking like a game where I could get some scenario points. But check out the picture below.

The distance between the Khador Battle Engine is exactly 10 inches.  Siege was in his fox hole saying “Meh, its got big guns and im def 18 immune to blast…. They couldn’t possibly hit me from…..”. then the engine charged, knocked him down and applied cannon to face until he was dead.

I was quite stunned, I had no idea they were that fast and could fire in melee after charging. Even camping focus Siege was hit with 5 high power attacks and collapsed into a sad pile of wibbly wobbly gooey siege chunks. 

Well done Rick, that was one of those serious “WTF just happened” moments for me. This is also the first time I have ever lost to Khador.

Result – Siege changes his name to “Hubcap” Khador wins (1-2)

Game four vs. Thomas (Cygnar)

I’m not going to say much about this game as Thomas and I agree it was not much fun. It was pHaley and Stormwall vs Siege and Stormwall and that should have been interesting. However I was feeling rather sick by this point and a terrible accident occurred early in the game which saw all of Thomas 2^nd list being smashed on the floor.

Thomas was clearly off his game after that and so was I. No one likes seeing someone else models badly damaged and after that point we both made poor moves and generally played like puddings. 

Thomas’s ambient skill level was higher and he carried the day by applying a Stormwall to Siege’s face, but only after Siege had flubbed an easy assassination run on Haley (her on one focus, ranger in range, breach and I forgot to use reinholdt for the 2nd shot and missed terribly on the first roll). This is also after Thomas failed an assassination run after messing up his own timing as well.

Not a fun game for either of us. I was glad to get home and rest.

Result – Haley survives, Siege gets buried in a tin can. (1-3)

Game five vs. Nic (Menoth)

So after a good nights sleep (and some groaning and wailing on the sofa of suffering that evening) I arrived fresh and feeling a lot better for day two. I pretty much needed to win every remaining game compressively to end up middle of the pack. As you shall see that really didn’t happen.

Nic and I had played once before at Valleycon and his list looked similar to the one he played there. Kreoss, Exemplars, Errants, Bastions and Jacks backed up by a choir.

This is honestly a dream matchup for Siege and his list. Choirs aren’t a problem when you can grant magic attacks to units and lightning attacks can arc from the jacks to kill the Choir. Bastions HATE breach, it means small arms fire is doing enough damage to kill a Bastion outright. My stormcallers did enough damage to kill a bastion or two non the breach round.

The hero of the day was the lightning pod though. Disrupting the menoth jacks blunted Nics attack on my centre (Stormwall, Siege, StormStrider) and the lightning arcs killed off his support troops. Disrupted, without choirs and vassals menoth jacks don’t stand a chance against a rampaging collosal.

This game nearly went to time though, I think Nic and I were playing pretty casually and it wasn’t until my clock got below 10 minutes that I really knuckled down and started to play fast.

Kreoss had learnt from our previous game and stayed far away from Siege.

Result – Stormwall and Siege sit on the objective cooking hot dogs with menoth fire while Kreoss beats a retreat and hides behind a shrub. (2-3)

Game six vs Will (Cryx)

First mistake, took Siege list as I was feeling good from the big win over Nic. Second mistake…. Playing the game…. But seriously, Will fielded terminus and the largest pile of Undead I have ever seen.  There were probably 50 models on the other side of the table…. With tough…. Ugly ugly stuff.

I love the goggly eyes

Will played mercilessly and some of the highlights were my Gun Mages reinforcements missing almost their entire round of shooting only to be exploded by a bile thrall, A group of Satyxis eating my Storm Strider for breakfast and a Stormwall so badly debuffed that Mechanathralls were rlling straight damage dice in melee….. Its amazing how many mechanithralls you can fit around one models base. (I’ll give you a hint, enough to scrap a Colossal in one turn).

I made some major mistakes, some by psyching myself out about the size of the enemy force, and some because Will crammed a legion of corpses down my forces throat.

I misinterpreted how sacrificial lamb work (thought it counted for melee) and botched an assassination run at Terminus with the Stormwall. Played again I would have focussed on clearing the charge lane and not worrying about the models around him. Even terminus has to worry about a collosal engaging him in melee, especially during Sieges feat round.

But all credit to Will, a solid ass kicking if ever there was one.

Result – Terminus and the undead horde wreck everything but Siege survives a face to face battle with Terminus. Objetive victory to the evil cryxies (2-4)

Game seven vs Matthew (Khador)

Well my target of 4 wins was in the toilet so the last game was playing for pride.

A shout out to Matthew who is a great guy to play against with a great attitude and some amazing models. He would have been my pic for the painting trophy as I simply love his painting style and his Fenris conversion is simply fantastic. HES RIDING A BEAR GODDAMMIT

In another grossly unfair match up the forces of the butcher were matched up against Siege and his Stormwall. Matthews force was a mix of fast moving aggressive units like the Great bears, Manhunters and Fenris, Big chunky Beast 09 and Gun Carraige, and support models like widowmakers.

He pulled a nice move to swing around behind my formation to make an assassination run on Siege. Unfortunately guys like Fenris don’t last long against Siege and Breach. The Manhunters got ground pounded, Beast disrupted, his support units ate lightning and the gun carriage made little impact on Sieges fox hole.

Facing desperate times the Butcher took some swings at the Stormwall and very nearly killed it. It is amazing how much damage that guy can put on one model. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite enough and Arlan repaired the damage weapon systems that allowed Stormwall to pound Butcher into a nice fine paste.

Result – Nearly total wipe out but sadly only 1 CP…. (3-4)

                                 

Conclusion

32^nd out of 45 was not the result I was going for, but I learned a lot and when I wasn’t feeling like death I had a good time.  Look forward to the next one but im probably gonan take a break from painting warmachine to focus on some other projects. I will also get around to photographing the models I finished for the tournament as well.

BONUS CONTENT

Mike O’sullivan may have finished last in the points, but he has the most amazing conversions. I shared some of his bases from a game we played in Napier but hes really out done himself here. These Wraith engines are so over the top I cant help but take my hat off to him.

  

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!

Haley - Popping the Bubble - How to lose at Warmachine

Well, i've been trying out a new warcaster since Valleycon in the form of pHaley.

So far my efforts with her have been made of phail. For those in the audience without the background pHaley is a Cyngar cast who has high focus, a pretty good spell list with a really notable you can build your army around. That spell is temporal barrier. 

Temporal barrier is pretty powerful. It projects a bubble the size of pHaleys control area (14" or 16" with squire). No enemy models in that area can run or charge, and they have -2 defence. The concept behind the lists i've been building is to use this bubble to limit my opponents ability to charge, get into position to charge myself and inflict significant damage on my opponent.

So far this just hasn't worked. Either i've dropped the barrier too early (as it costs a whopping 4 of pHaleys 7 focus a turn to cast) or people have found work arounds. People have been bursting my bubble in more ways than one.

Game One Vs. Cryx

My first mistake was saying "yes" when Thomas offered to play me with his Cryx army. Thomas is a very sharp player and I think him picking up Cryx as a change of pace from his Cygnar force is just downright unfriendly for all involved.

But I get ahead of myself. Thomas was fielding a force made up of the Epic Aspyhxious (or eGaspy as he is known) the Deathjack, a seether, cankerworm (See art below) Bane Thralls and Bane Lord Tartarus (See right) and probably a few other bits i've forgotten.

The List

pHaley with Squire

10 Precursor Knights with leader
10 Long gunners
Hunter
Thorn
2 chain guns

Knights to act as the meatwall and be supported by Long Gunners. Hunter and Thorn to harrass and the chain guns for some additional anti-infantry.

The Game

Well, things started off alright. Asides from eGaspy and his tendency to place cloud templates to block my line of sight.That was annoying let me tell you. Long gunners need to fire in order to be constructive, with limited fire lines they were having to maneuver (I also found out that you lose your aim bonus if you move on the spot)

The deathjack ran into the middle of my force supported by cankerworm and backed up by the bane knights. So far so good I thought as I diengaged my hunter from the Deathjack using parry to avoid free strikes. I popped my feat (1 bonus attack for all units) and the knights charged The Deathjack and Cankerworm while the long gunners blazed away at the Bane Knights.

Oddly, while the 12 Point Deathjack exploded in a hail of mace blows from the knights, the Cankerworm was barely scratched. The death knights were decimated by long gunner fire and things weren't looking too bad. Thorn on the other hand was being useless and barely scratched the Seether. Trying to be clever I used up too much focus with spells via thorn, temporal barrier was down.

Then things went pear shaped.

Cankerworm left combat with parry to go eat my hunter, 2 seconds later there was a hunter-sized crater. But the defining moment of the game was from Bane Lord Tartarus.  

He charged the pile of knights and used a thresher attack to stab everyone in his melee range.... in this case 6 knights. He hit and killed each and every one of them

HOLY CRAP, THATS NASTY!  I hear you say

It gets worse.... far far worse

Every knight he killed allowed him to add a Bane Knight that had been lost back to a unit and WHOMP! Full unit of Bane Knights who could activate that turn. Cue long gunners exploding into meaty chunks at the end of a Bane Knight charge

Haley held on for a while and managed to chain lightening to death most of the Bane Knights (And her own squire) But the bubble had burst and Gaspy simple held the objective to win (after spending 7 focus to kill 3 long gunners)

Game Two vs Retribution

Well, I could write a full battle report for this game but that would take longer than the actual game was. Let me say the following thing.

THESE GUYS ARE MAGE HUNTERS AND THEY CAN SEE AND SHOOT THROUGH WALLS

Simply put, I set up, moved up a bit, and then Chris (who's Skorne I have played before) used his casters feat for boosted attack rolls, cast snipe, moved forward and shot my caster 10 times (well actually 5, he didn't need the other 5 shots)

Lessons learned

• Temp bubble at 4 focus is really expensive and you can easily overspend your focus
• Mage hunters..... yeah..... ouch
• Need ways to deal with stealth units. 
• For the bubble to work I need to identify bug threats to it early one and kill them quickly, then work on grinding out a win.