Warm up to Blood and Oil 2016

This was going to be my first ever Masters Tournament and 5th ever Warmachine Tournament.  For those of you who don't know a Masters Tournament is essentially a big Steamroller event that includes a minimum of 32 players.  Blood and Oil is a three list event which caused me numerous headaches, although being DC0 it meant that you didn’t have to play all of the lists.  It also used the Active Duty Roster, meaning that if you used the prime casters you could swap 40 points of your lists before the game but after initial list selection.  Whilst I toyed with the idea of ADR (High Reclaimer, Kreoss1 and Severius1) I knew that I was already going to struggle with list selection and the thought of having to do ADR as well was just too much for my brain to handle.  It would also have meant me leaving Thyra behind who was the only caster I felt comfortable with and had won with.

I started practice after coming back from my Holiday in early October.  Looking back I could have done with much more practice especially with my two ‘new’ drops.  In total practice involved around 14 games using a combination of casters that I thought I would be taking.  I was never in any doubt that Thyra would be my main drop so all I had to do was find two alternative lists to cover her weaknesses.  This was easier said than done and I tried 5 different casters with different lists trying to fill in the blanks.  The options tried were a Severius1 double Judicator list, Kreoss1 pop and drop, a High Recliamer melee list, Durst jack spam and a Kreoss3 exemplar list.

I ended up with taking a fairly solid Kreoss1 gunline/pop and drop list that although a touch boring would be great for when my brain was fried at the end of day 1.  Incidentally the one trial game with this list I also won whilst playing into Legion.  The ability to put all that high def infantry on its backside and then remove it was amazing.  The next list I knew needed to hit really hard and crack any armour that I may come up against.  After a lot of chatting online and thinking I ended up with what I hoped would be a solid Kreoss3 list with cavalry as a first wave and two units of Knights Exemplar to follow them in.  As a very last minute decision I swapped in a Vessel of Judgement as I felt it was lacking the ability to hit back.  Sadly the only practice games I got with this list I lost but my thinking was that at the end of the day I could leave it in the tray and not use it, but at least I had my lists!

Its also worth a note that I actually managed to get some serious painting done in the few months before the tournament.  When I started my only painted models were a Reckoner and Kreoss1.  By the day of the tournament this had increased to a fully painted Thyra list, and mostly painted in the other two lists.  Of the 80 models in my lists (including duplication) 63 were painted which I’m pretty proud of.