Well, its been a hell of a week at work, at home, and working from home; however yesterday I got to go out and play games! So, I woke up far to early, picked up army and my Khador counterpart, Niklas; and then drove down to the pointy end of Sweden and the city Malmö.
Our target was Playoteket and a 16 player Warmachine-Hordes tournament entitled Open Fist I.
This was my first tournament in Sverige and the first using my Retribution. Of course due my aforementioned crazy week, I only had one of list organised, but that was only a minor detail. The objective was to throw some dice and try not to get deathclocked. Anything else would be a bonus.
With the clock in mind, I took Kaelyssa (because I know how she works) with Sylys, a Banshee, a Phoenix, a full unit of Invictors plus officer and standard, two Mage Hunter Assassins, and eEiryss.
I even picked up a black tray from City Gross so I looked organised. This was a ruse.
A Game of Many Screw Ups
My first game was against Johan Ridell, an extremely nice fellow who fully deserved to win best sportsman at the end of the day. He had a plan to use a Circle warlock he used familiar with, and then swapped to Kromac just before the event, which probably was not the best idea. There was a scenario, but we both deployed in a perfect manner to completely ignore it.
Although it would not have affected the final outcome, here is a list of mistakes, which were mostly mine, made during this game:
- Allocating focus. I really really really have to remember to do this.
- I know what the Lord of the Feast does, and I put myself into a position for him to eat most of my Invictors. Again.
- Slamming small bases into medium bases DOES NOT knock them over. I can’t apologise enough for this one. Sorry…
- Arcane secrets is on both attack AND damage rolls.
- Mage Hunter Assassins should keep their distance from Warpwolves.
Anyway, Johan was very gracious when I rolled stupidly high damage on a Rift spell and nailed Kromac (after stealing what little fury he had, and with a lot more focus in hand).
“Aren’t you a little short for a gun mage?”
Very Posh Dwarves
My second game was versus a Highborn list with Durgen Madhammer, a bunch of converted dwarf gun mages and a chap called Andreas. Once again I largely ignored the scenario, although I think if things had turned out differently, Andreas would have died by the clock as he only had three minutes left.
However when presented with an opportunity to get myself killed, I happily obliged and went for the assassination.
Sitting on five focus, Durgen was a tough target. First came the knock down from the Banshee. Next, the Invictors (who should have activated after Kaelyssa) trickled him a bit with a single CRA shot.
Then a lucky Mage Hunter Assassin removed Alexia. This allowed to Kaelyssa start slinging spells. After stealing three points of focus from the Dwarf. She nailed him. Just.
Two jammy assassinations, and I had not clocked myself. Not a bad start.
eLylyth
The problem with using a single list, is that sometimes, someone else will have a hard counter for it. Torbjörn had two, and he chose to use eLylyth. The challenge I had here was that eLylyth’s battlegroup had Stealth, they mostly ignored my Stealth, could seriously out shoot me; and had eLylyth.
Half of my army evaporated on Tobbe’s first turn. My caster went turn two. It hurt. However Torbjörn was very happy because he secured his place at the top table for the final game of the day.
Although this was a horrible matchup, I think the addition of some really heavy armour with a side of Stormfall Archers might help next time. I have plans should I come across this matchup again…
It was a very short game so I had plenty of time until round four.
Just behind us, Christian Aas and Johan Persson were fighting it out for the other top spot. In the end, the Menite won so Johan would be my opponent for the final game.
And finally…
As it turns out, Johan was another very good player and I got his pDoomShaper brick list to the face in my final round. Again, this was another learning experience and despite Johan’s suspicions I was leading him into a trap, I made a big mistake and fed both of my mymridons to his heavies.
Under Johan’s feat, which damaged Kaelyssa every time she used a focus point, my failed assassination run almost killed her. Mulg sealed the deal the following turn. For the record, that dire troll should have critical pitch because the tree definitely has a baseball bat feel to it.
Anyway, a fourth great game against another great opponent.
Christian Aas’ Menoth beat Torbjörn to win overall, and he also walked off with best painted army, although for the record Christian’s Legion are a lot prettier than his Menoth.
Conclusions
In the end, I lost two and won two. Considering I only took a single list and it was the first time I played any of these four scenarios, and I was playing under a clock, and I didn’t have a single cup of coffee all day; I’m pretty happy with that.
Actually, considering my objective was to quote “throw some dice and not deathclock myself”, I was very happy to finish 6th out of 16.
A special mention should also to Viktor for running a great little event and finally I would like to thank everyone attending for making this Englishman feel very welcome. Tack sa mycket!
Next time, I think I shall be mostly bringing casters beginning with the letter ‘R’. This means I need to paint a lot more stuff.
Anything Worth Doing... 