Well our 1-1-1-1 Warmachine/Hordes tournament happened last Saturday and it was a great success. We got the vast majority of the people that signed up to show up and play. We had four 8'x4' tables going with two games a piece on most of them.
I have not participated in a tournament since last fall and I did horrible in that tourny. The tournament last fall was in Boise and I made a lot of mistakes loosing some ugly games, it left a strong impression on me and my play. I really wanted to do well in the 1-1-1-1 tournament and had been practicing and agonizing over my lists for weeks. I knew what some of the other players were going to take and I feared that I did not have the best tools to deal with those lists. However, I put together what I thought were playable lists that could deal with most opponents reasonably well and prepared myself mentally for the tournament.
In the week leading up to the tournament I played several games to prepare myself. During these aforementioned games leading up to the tournament I played fairly well, rarely making the mistakes that have become my trademark over the last couple months. I reacted well to my opponents strategies while facing some very difficult lists. So coming into the tournament I was going on something like a 5-0 record, having played some of the best games I had played in a while. I feared that my luck could not hold out and that my tournament play would become derailed at some point.
I did not sleep well the night before the tournament. I tried to go to bed at a reasonable hour to be rested but I tossed and turned and ran over different scenarios in my mind. What would I do if my opponent brought Sorscha and how was I going to stop the Stormlance blitz. I had already seen some very tough lists in my practice games and they had not been easy wins. I was more going over my own response to these threats as I feared that I would make a fatal mistake and put a knife in my own game. The morning of the tournament I stopped at a convenience store and picked up two 24 oz. cans of energy drink. I was already wired and frazzled from the prospect of playing in a competitive environment (which I don't normally do as the local Privateer Press representative, normally I run the tournaments) and then I added in some energy drink just to rile me up some more.
My stomach was topsy turvy as the first round began. I got matched up against one of the tournaments strongest players. He is always a possible tournament favorite. He won our first tournament of the year and has placed well in all the others including taking second at the ICON Warmachine tournament. Plus he had brought one of the two lists I had agonized facing. He had a full unit of Stormlance Cavalry and out of fear of his second list I had taken my Witch Coven list. The Witch Coven was a very unorthodox army for the tournament format. However they proved to be a good choice as I do not believe my opponent had ever seen them before and underestimated their ability to kill a warcaster all by their selves. On his first round he made his first mistake and moved his warcaster to far forward giving me a chance. I ran my arc-node across the board and fired two stygian abyss spells at him with the witch's in perfect conjunction. It was text book for the coven. My dice rolls betrayed me though; average rolls should have killed his warcaster. I left him with three wounds remaining and my most important model (my one and only warjack; a Nightwretch) sitting right in front of his entire force.
The one mistake I feared, I had not made, I had used the coven's feat on the round that it mattered. He would have a difficult time retaliating against my failed assassination attempt. He attempted to kill my little Nightwretch using Kathrine Laddermore and a Lancer. Here he made his second fatal mistake, he did significant damage with Laddermore then moved the Lancer up to finish the job. He decided to use the Lancer's shield in an attempt to remove my cortex. After two hits with the shield he left me with three damage boxes. Those three damage boxes were the only three damage boxes on the card that mattered: Hull, Movement, Arcnode. Had he used the Lancer's spear for those two attacks the little warjack would have been completely destroyed. He used his feat (Stryker; +5 armor) with his blinded (from one of the stygian hits) warcaster and finished his turn.
I had one chance and it wasnt a great one. His caster had +5 armor from his feat. I moved my arc node out of engagement with ghost walk then cast another stygian on Stryker. I hit and rolled 11 on my three dice for damage; Twenty-four damage. "Not enough, you needed one more to kill him" my opponent replied. I had puppet strings up allowing me to re-roll the damage roll so I rolled it again. Again my dice came up 2, 4, 5. I couldn't believe it, I had put all my eggs in one basket in the hopes of striking down my first opponent and I had come up short. I was horrified, once again I had pushed myself into a compromising situation with my warcaster (the Witch Coven) way to far forward and far to easy to kill. My chances at winning the tournament a failure at stared at my dice again and in one last futile attempt did the math again, this time when I added it up I came up with three wounds of damage! All of a sudden there was new hope, that I had succeeded. I double checked the math with my opponent. He looked down at his card and again at the dice and realized it was over, I had killed his warcaster.
The second round I faced a Legion of Everblight player who was using Thagrosh. I got the feeling that my first win had given me significant momentum, he and a few of the other players started to murmur that I would be difficult to stop. While this was somewhat flattering, I knew better. I knew that given the chance I could easily be my own worst enemy. In this game my opponent gave my army a wide berth, staying pretty far back on his side of the table. I set myself in the center of the table holding the scenario objective and feeling his force out as I worked on a way to win the scenario in the third round. At the end of the second round he ran some of his force into contested area in an attempt to keep me from winning by scenario(or at least thats what I thought). On my third turn he only had four models in the contested area and both within easy reach of my two hardest hitters, Goreshade and the Deathjack. He seemed somewhat surprised that I declared the game over after killing his models, he had made a serious mistake in forgetting to keep track of the rounds and the scenario objective.
The failure to observe the scenario objective was also my third opponents mistake. He also gave my models a lot of distance not wanting to become engaged, and moved to the side of the objective only putting one model into the contested zone. I used the terrain to stop charge lanes and ran my fodder to engage his cavalry before he could charge. At the end of his third turn he had two models in the contested zone of the scenario, Katherine Laddermore and a Lancer. At this point I was already sick of seeing these two models and Laddermore can avoid being killed in a single round by a model without reach because once she gets dismounted from her horse she can be placed outside of an opponents melee range. This was a serious issue because there were only two models in my army with enough hitting power to kill both the Lancer and Laddermore in one round and they were out of position. The Deathjack who doesn't have reach needed to be on the Lancer and Goreshade who did have reach needed to be on Laddermore, yet Laddermore had just charged the Deathjack and had him engaged and he was standing between Goreshade and Laddermore. I took a small chance and had the Deathjack leave melee with Laddermore to charge the lancer, killing it quickly, and then crossed with Goreshade to kill her. I had won again and now I was 3-0 with only one other player undefeated.
The final round was again against a player that had very limited experience with Cryx and had very little knowledge of my threat range and my abilities. He quickly made his first mistake. The first round he ran his Thunderhead up 10 inches and within range of a Goreshade charge plus feat. He really had no clue that I could get that far across the board on turn one. In my head I quickly did the math to make sure I would have the range. 28" apart at deployment, minus 10" for the Thunderhead's movement, minus 9" for Goreshades charge, minus 3" for the range I could place the Bane Thralls out in front of Goreshade, then a 8" charge from the Thralls. It was possible and my heart leapt. I was so close to finishing the tournament 4-0 and going home with the overall win. So I began activating models and moving up my unit then I looked down and realized I had not given the Deathjack a focus point. In my mind I saw the freight train flying off the tracks and the imminent crash coming as started making massive mistakes that would end my day. I stepped a half step back from the game board and took a deep breath. I was too close to allow myself to make a mistake here. After I got my wits back I realized it was not half as bad as it could have been, but I could not let that happen again, the next time it could be fatal. I sacrificed a mechanithrall to the Deathjack to keep him from trying to kill Goreshade and moved him up. Then I moved Goreshade, used his feat, cast mage blight and charged the Thunderhead with the Bane Thralls created from the feat. The Bane Thralls shredded the Thunderhead in 4 hits even with arcane shield on it (it didn't hurt that my third damage roll was 4, 5, 5, 6). My opponent was at a loss for words, he had not been prepared to loose a major portion of his army before his second turn. In his flustered state he attempted to move his warcaster (Haley) up and cast temporal barrier, unfortunately for him he had moved into range of mage blight and his spell failed. It only took a soul gated Deathjack to kill her on the subsequent round.
After all that agonizing I won the entire tournament and did so in fairly convincing fashion. It felt very good to have such a good showing. However, I feel that each of my opponents made some very critical mistakes and I'm not sure the outcome of the games would have been as clear had they avoided these mistakes. Yet I was able to capitalize on each mistake and avoid making game ending mistakes myself, and really thats what competition is all about isn't it?
I have not participated in a tournament since last fall and I did horrible in that tourny. The tournament last fall was in Boise and I made a lot of mistakes loosing some ugly games, it left a strong impression on me and my play. I really wanted to do well in the 1-1-1-1 tournament and had been practicing and agonizing over my lists for weeks. I knew what some of the other players were going to take and I feared that I did not have the best tools to deal with those lists. However, I put together what I thought were playable lists that could deal with most opponents reasonably well and prepared myself mentally for the tournament.
In the week leading up to the tournament I played several games to prepare myself. During these aforementioned games leading up to the tournament I played fairly well, rarely making the mistakes that have become my trademark over the last couple months. I reacted well to my opponents strategies while facing some very difficult lists. So coming into the tournament I was going on something like a 5-0 record, having played some of the best games I had played in a while. I feared that my luck could not hold out and that my tournament play would become derailed at some point.
I did not sleep well the night before the tournament. I tried to go to bed at a reasonable hour to be rested but I tossed and turned and ran over different scenarios in my mind. What would I do if my opponent brought Sorscha and how was I going to stop the Stormlance blitz. I had already seen some very tough lists in my practice games and they had not been easy wins. I was more going over my own response to these threats as I feared that I would make a fatal mistake and put a knife in my own game. The morning of the tournament I stopped at a convenience store and picked up two 24 oz. cans of energy drink. I was already wired and frazzled from the prospect of playing in a competitive environment (which I don't normally do as the local Privateer Press representative, normally I run the tournaments) and then I added in some energy drink just to rile me up some more.
My stomach was topsy turvy as the first round began. I got matched up against one of the tournaments strongest players. He is always a possible tournament favorite. He won our first tournament of the year and has placed well in all the others including taking second at the ICON Warmachine tournament. Plus he had brought one of the two lists I had agonized facing. He had a full unit of Stormlance Cavalry and out of fear of his second list I had taken my Witch Coven list. The Witch Coven was a very unorthodox army for the tournament format. However they proved to be a good choice as I do not believe my opponent had ever seen them before and underestimated their ability to kill a warcaster all by their selves. On his first round he made his first mistake and moved his warcaster to far forward giving me a chance. I ran my arc-node across the board and fired two stygian abyss spells at him with the witch's in perfect conjunction. It was text book for the coven. My dice rolls betrayed me though; average rolls should have killed his warcaster. I left him with three wounds remaining and my most important model (my one and only warjack; a Nightwretch) sitting right in front of his entire force.
The one mistake I feared, I had not made, I had used the coven's feat on the round that it mattered. He would have a difficult time retaliating against my failed assassination attempt. He attempted to kill my little Nightwretch using Kathrine Laddermore and a Lancer. Here he made his second fatal mistake, he did significant damage with Laddermore then moved the Lancer up to finish the job. He decided to use the Lancer's shield in an attempt to remove my cortex. After two hits with the shield he left me with three damage boxes. Those three damage boxes were the only three damage boxes on the card that mattered: Hull, Movement, Arcnode. Had he used the Lancer's spear for those two attacks the little warjack would have been completely destroyed. He used his feat (Stryker; +5 armor) with his blinded (from one of the stygian hits) warcaster and finished his turn.
I had one chance and it wasnt a great one. His caster had +5 armor from his feat. I moved my arc node out of engagement with ghost walk then cast another stygian on Stryker. I hit and rolled 11 on my three dice for damage; Twenty-four damage. "Not enough, you needed one more to kill him" my opponent replied. I had puppet strings up allowing me to re-roll the damage roll so I rolled it again. Again my dice came up 2, 4, 5. I couldn't believe it, I had put all my eggs in one basket in the hopes of striking down my first opponent and I had come up short. I was horrified, once again I had pushed myself into a compromising situation with my warcaster (the Witch Coven) way to far forward and far to easy to kill. My chances at winning the tournament a failure at stared at my dice again and in one last futile attempt did the math again, this time when I added it up I came up with three wounds of damage! All of a sudden there was new hope, that I had succeeded. I double checked the math with my opponent. He looked down at his card and again at the dice and realized it was over, I had killed his warcaster.
The second round I faced a Legion of Everblight player who was using Thagrosh. I got the feeling that my first win had given me significant momentum, he and a few of the other players started to murmur that I would be difficult to stop. While this was somewhat flattering, I knew better. I knew that given the chance I could easily be my own worst enemy. In this game my opponent gave my army a wide berth, staying pretty far back on his side of the table. I set myself in the center of the table holding the scenario objective and feeling his force out as I worked on a way to win the scenario in the third round. At the end of the second round he ran some of his force into contested area in an attempt to keep me from winning by scenario(or at least thats what I thought). On my third turn he only had four models in the contested area and both within easy reach of my two hardest hitters, Goreshade and the Deathjack. He seemed somewhat surprised that I declared the game over after killing his models, he had made a serious mistake in forgetting to keep track of the rounds and the scenario objective.
The failure to observe the scenario objective was also my third opponents mistake. He also gave my models a lot of distance not wanting to become engaged, and moved to the side of the objective only putting one model into the contested zone. I used the terrain to stop charge lanes and ran my fodder to engage his cavalry before he could charge. At the end of his third turn he had two models in the contested zone of the scenario, Katherine Laddermore and a Lancer. At this point I was already sick of seeing these two models and Laddermore can avoid being killed in a single round by a model without reach because once she gets dismounted from her horse she can be placed outside of an opponents melee range. This was a serious issue because there were only two models in my army with enough hitting power to kill both the Lancer and Laddermore in one round and they were out of position. The Deathjack who doesn't have reach needed to be on the Lancer and Goreshade who did have reach needed to be on Laddermore, yet Laddermore had just charged the Deathjack and had him engaged and he was standing between Goreshade and Laddermore. I took a small chance and had the Deathjack leave melee with Laddermore to charge the lancer, killing it quickly, and then crossed with Goreshade to kill her. I had won again and now I was 3-0 with only one other player undefeated.
The final round was again against a player that had very limited experience with Cryx and had very little knowledge of my threat range and my abilities. He quickly made his first mistake. The first round he ran his Thunderhead up 10 inches and within range of a Goreshade charge plus feat. He really had no clue that I could get that far across the board on turn one. In my head I quickly did the math to make sure I would have the range. 28" apart at deployment, minus 10" for the Thunderhead's movement, minus 9" for Goreshades charge, minus 3" for the range I could place the Bane Thralls out in front of Goreshade, then a 8" charge from the Thralls. It was possible and my heart leapt. I was so close to finishing the tournament 4-0 and going home with the overall win. So I began activating models and moving up my unit then I looked down and realized I had not given the Deathjack a focus point. In my mind I saw the freight train flying off the tracks and the imminent crash coming as started making massive mistakes that would end my day. I stepped a half step back from the game board and took a deep breath. I was too close to allow myself to make a mistake here. After I got my wits back I realized it was not half as bad as it could have been, but I could not let that happen again, the next time it could be fatal. I sacrificed a mechanithrall to the Deathjack to keep him from trying to kill Goreshade and moved him up. Then I moved Goreshade, used his feat, cast mage blight and charged the Thunderhead with the Bane Thralls created from the feat. The Bane Thralls shredded the Thunderhead in 4 hits even with arcane shield on it (it didn't hurt that my third damage roll was 4, 5, 5, 6). My opponent was at a loss for words, he had not been prepared to loose a major portion of his army before his second turn. In his flustered state he attempted to move his warcaster (Haley) up and cast temporal barrier, unfortunately for him he had moved into range of mage blight and his spell failed. It only took a soul gated Deathjack to kill her on the subsequent round.
After all that agonizing I won the entire tournament and did so in fairly convincing fashion. It felt very good to have such a good showing. However, I feel that each of my opponents made some very critical mistakes and I'm not sure the outcome of the games would have been as clear had they avoided these mistakes. Yet I was able to capitalize on each mistake and avoid making game ending mistakes myself, and really thats what competition is all about isn't it?
Labels: Warmachine
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