WTC Practice event

Last weekend I was up in Dublin for some toys.

We had 5 teams in attendance, an odd number but it meant there was going to be 3 rounds and some games.

I ended up bringing Haley2 and a revised Caine2 I talked about previously:

(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley

 - Avenger

 - Stormclad

 - Stormclad

 - Thorn

 - Squire

Captain Arlan Strangewayes

Storm Lances (max)

Ragman

(Caine 2) Captain Allister Caine

 - Defender

 - Hunter

 - Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator

Journeyman Warcaster

 - Firefly

Stormblade Infantry

 - Stormblade Infantry Storm Gunner x2

 - Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard

Storm Lances (max)

Trencher Infantry (min)

Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

Captain Maxwell Finn

Our team - Ireland Craic - consisted of:

(Me)Cygnar - Haley2 and Caine2

Circle - Wormwood and Kromac2

Trolls - Madrak2 and Doomy1

Legion - Rhyas and Thagrosh2

Menoth - Kreoss1 and Thyra

Round one we were paired up against the Merc team for this event they had:

Khador - Butcher3 and Sorscha1

Ret - Ossyan and Rahn

Trolls - Madrak2 and Calandra

Cygnar1 - Kara and Styker2

Cygnar2 - Caine2 and Maddox

We all wanted to avoid the Kara Matchup aside from Wormwood so we set out to engineer that.

(Me)Cygnar Vs Trolls

Circle Vs Cygnar1

Legion Vs Cygnar2

Trolls Vs Ret

Menoth Vs Khador

I am playing against Anton a French doctor and hipster aficionado.

He has Madrak2 and Calandra, he also knows that I have been working on my Haley2 list as a Madrak2 counter so he elects to drop Calandra.

I of course drop Haley2.

His Calandra list is as follows:

(Calandra 1) Calandra Truthsayer, Oracle of the Glimmerwood

 - Dire Troll Bomber

 - Rok

 - Troll Axer

 - Trollkin Runebearer

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (max)

 - Stone Scribe Elder

Sons of Bragg

Trollkin Warders (min)

Trollkin Champions (min)

 - Skaldi Bonehammer

Looking back on the list I think he might have had max Champs on the field as opposed to the min listed here, yep, after checking, he's a cheater!

So anyway, I won the roll to go first and elected to do so.

I did the usual TK and reaction drive up with the Jacks  running the Lances and putting Haley near my flag and the edge of the zone.

Anto puts bullet dodger on Rok and moves the rest of his stuff up at a run, casting Starcrossed but forgetting to put fury on the stone!

He also makes a positioning error of leaving a champion within distance enough of a Quake shot catching Rok.

I setup a turn to try and clear the zone and remove Rok then feat.

I am able to do so by TK'ing the Champion closest to Rok and putting him with his back to the Avenger. The Avenger then knocks him and Rok down and I send in both Stormclads to kill off Rok and the Champs in the Zone.

Haley feats.

Anto has to dump fury into the stone this turn and is able to Befuddle the closest clad into Melee with a Son of Bragg after doing great bomb rolls on it, this kills it. The Warders move forward to jam up in the zone along with the other Champs.

Calandra is on 1 fury in the trench with Starcrossed up.

I come up with loads of different plans to assassinate him and end up using thorn to TK her out of the Trench and turn her around, I then TA the Avenger and TK a Warder away, I also TK a Lance to make room for Ragman.

Ragman moves up and Death Fields to catch the Warders  then the Clad moves up and kills or toughs the two Warders in Shield Guard Range and then the Avenger moves up and shoots Calandra twice doing decent damage as well.

Then the Storm Lances assault in, one of them getting the full charge thanks to Impact attacks working on a knocked down Warder and I then shoot my assaults and I am able to finish her off without having to make the Melee swing.

Assassination WIN!

Thoughts:

A number of errors lead to Rok dying, although it is pretty hard to protect him against the avenger and TK.

Not putting fury on the stone meant no +2 ARM for Rok or even bullet dodger for Calandra.

Losing a clad under Haleys feat was bad but I did trade it well with Rok and I still had the Avenger in case of Emergencies.

Thorn is a boss, and amazing at enabling Haley to avoid the Star Crossed bubble.

The team is able to win a couple of other games and we win the round 3-2

(Me)Cygnar Vs Trolls - WIN

Circle Vs Cygnar1  - WIN

Legion Vs Cygnar2 - LOSS

Trolls Vs Ret - LOSS

Menoth Vs Khador  - WIN

The next Team is Brigands Prime playing:

Khador1 - Karchev and Sorscha1

Khador2 - Kozlov and Zerkova2

Skorne1 - Makeda3 and Hexeris1

Skorne2 - Xekaar and

Legion - Thagrosh2 and Abby1

Our menoth player wants to avoid Sorscha1 so we opt for that.

(Me)Cygnar Vs Skorne1

Circle Vs Khador1

Legion Vs Legion

Trolls Vs Skorne2

Menoth Vs Khador2

So I am playing Conor who has Makeda3 and Hexeris1, both heavy on the beasts so I opt for Haley2 again, he selects Makeda3:

(Makeda 3) Makeda & the Exalted Court

 - the Exalted Court

 - Molik Karn

 - Tiberion

 - Cyclops Brute

 - Cyclops Brute

 - Titan Gladiator

 - Cyclops Savage

Orin Midwinter, Rogue Inquisitor

Mortitheurge Willbreaker

Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)

Paingiver Beast Handlers (min)

I lose the roll and end up going second.

Conor deploys with Makeda centrally, Tibbers on my left, Molik on my right and the other Cyclops in the middle.

I unpack and create a 13.1" Molik bubble around my right hand zone with Thorn hanging out in the middle, I do forget to move Haley though.

Conor Moves Tibbers into the Left zone and with some Paingivers and a Sentry and Brute into the right with One Paingiver.

I charge Haley into the Zone, after casting a few spells and feating. One clad goes in after the Avenger Knocks down Molik and the Savage and Kills the Brute and Savage, a Storm Lance takes care of the Paingiver.

Thorn runs into the other zone and cowers behind a wall toeing the zone. I score 2 CPs

With almost all of his models under Haleys feat there isn’t much that can be done apart from to walk the Gladiator and 1 Brute into my zone along with a few Paingivers.

I use the Avenger to shoot one of Makdeas escorts, Knocking him and her down, killing Orin with blast damage.

I run Thorn across and then TK the Brute out of the zone and around so that Ragman can walk up to Death Field, A Stormclad walks round to Makdea and bops her on the head through 3 transfers.

Assassination WIN!

Thoughts:

Going second and being able to premeasure the predictable Threat Ranges was great, forcing the engagement and having Haleys feat to stop any retaliation was excellent, especially when the Skorne beasts are so slow.

I don't think Conor was that familiar with Haley2 and wasn't expecting the power of the feat.

The round ends 4-1 in our favour

(Me)Cygnar Vs Skorne1 - WIN

Circle Vs Khador1- WIN

Legion Vs Legion - WIN

Trolls Vs Skorne2 - LOSS

Menoth Vs Khador2 - WIN

Round Three is here and we are placed against the other Irish WTC Team in the final, Team Ceol

They have

Legion - Lylyth1 and Abby2

Cygnar - Haley2 and Caine2

Trolls - Madrak2 and Doomy2

Circle - Wormwood and Baldur2

Retribution - Ossyan and Kaelyssa

I want to try and arrange the Wormwood Mirror just to make them as miserable as possible but in the end we don't engineer that.

Pairings are:

(me)Cygnar Vs Cygnar

Legion Vs Trolls

Menoth Vs Legion

Circle Vs Ret

Trolls Vs Circle

I am paired against The robotic embodiment of Warmachine himself Mr Pat Dunford, Patbot.

We have a little discussion about the matchups we can expect and it turns out he is going to be laying a very similar list to me:

(Haley 2) Major Victoria Haley

 - Avenger

 - Stormclad

 - Stormclad

 - Thorn

 - Squire

Storm Lances (max)

Captain Maxwell Finn

Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress

I win the roll to go first and choose to do so.

The game involves a lot of posturing but I mess up and run 3 Lances too far forward into perfect Finn formation and Pat shanks them.

He camps 3 and hides behind two Clads.

I go for an assassination at this point as I'm now 3 Lances down for nothing.

I Dominate one of his Clads, Walk behind Haley and hit with the sword and Boxcars the Damage roll, good start.

This leaves her on 3 Boxes and with 2 focus. I am able to get one Lance Electro Leaps onto her forcing the focus to be spent but unfortunately I am unable to get more hits, the Clads go and I get one more hit but I could have potentially power boosted the hit roll and got her!

She Survives!

Pat then feats on me and kills all my toys aside from Haley and the Avenger so I go for the long Shot Dominate on his Avenger needing an unboosted 11 for it to hit followed by a 10, I get the 11 but roll a 6.

Then I get assassinated.

Assassination LOSS!

Thoughts:

I goofed on my first turn and it cost me big, I could have been safe by being more conscious of it.

It's a pretty weird mirror matchup and getting Pat down to 3 HP was nice, if lucky, and perhaps had I not tunnelled too hard I might have been able to get a boost and maybe finish Haley.

Three other games of the round are over relatively quickly and it turns out we are 2-2 so it's down to the final game.

You can read a report of it here:

http://arturoswarmachine.blogspot.ie/2016/07/wtc-practice-event-july-2016-round-3.html?m=1

So we lose the round 3-2 unfortunately:

(me)Cygnar Vs Cygnar - LOSS

Legion Vs Trolls - LOSS

Menoth Vs Legion - LOSS

Circle Vs Ret - WIN

Trolls Vs Circle - WIN

Overall it was  a good event with lots of skilled players and it’s a shame we lost out to our sister team.

The next day before heading home I got in another Calandra game , still points up but slightly different:

(Calandra 1) Calandra Truthsayer, Oracle of the Glimmerwood

 - Rok

 - Troll Bouncer

 - Dire Troll Bomber

 - Trollkin Runebearer

 - Troll Axer

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes (max)

 - Stone Scribe Elder

Sons of Bragg

Trollkin Champions (min)

 - Skaldi Bonehammer

I decide I might as well take Caine out for a spin in this game as he's been on the tray all day yesterday.

I lose the roll and pick the side with the trench I can hide in.

I deploy the Blades and Lances opposite the beasts and Caine and the Trenchers go right with the Jacks in the middle.

Anto Runs up turn one remembering to put fury on the stone.

The Blades and Lances run up, Blades minifeating and getting Arcane Shield. I move up and use the defender to snipe out the Spray Son of Bragg, make my could wall and sit tight.

The Bomber Kills two Lances and Starcrossed goes up, the Bomber has bullet dodger.

I put a couple of blades and a Lance into the Bomber but my dice combined with Starcrossed mean I don't really get much done, Caine moves up into the trench and takes shots at Champs, killing half.

The Rok and the Axer clear out the Blades around the Bomber who then kills my objective with a couple of champs assisting.

Calandra moves into the Zone and Anto scores 3 CPs.

I am really on the back foot so Caine feats to clear out a load of Trolls and hits the bomber a few times, landing grievous and leaving it on 3 Boxes.

The Blades charge in getting a 4 man CMA at MAT 12, not double 1s, 1,1,3 under Starcrossed......

I put some more models into the zone but Shoot the defender instead of moving it in.

Calandra moves up, feats and starts to befuddle models out of the zone and kill a few more with her dagger, Rok and the Bomber do plenty of work as the Bomber has a box in each aspect left.

With his last attack he kills Finn and a Stormblade to clear the zone and go to 5 CPs.

Scenario LOSS!

Thoughts:

Having a couple of extra champs on the board is pretty good! Cheats always beat!

I probably should have counter deployed to kill his infantry with the Lances and left the Blades to go and swing at things.

Caine can’t leverage himself as much in this matchup in terms of killing power, he can apply grievous but Starcrossed is really bad for a list with no hit buffs.

I should have been more focused on the zone and stopping Scoring, the Jacks can advance and still boos hits.

I'd like to play the matchup again, I think I understand it better.

Overall I had a great weekend, four excellent games a lots of practice.

I also had donuts, they were delicious.

There’s a tournament Saturday and I'm probably bringing the Toilet Man himself, Darius. Will see how that goes, I might just switch to Haley2 at the last minute.