Something new...

Having recovered from Blood and Oil this weeks games were the first outing for my two new casters (Amon and Testament).  Both games were into Retribution lists that weren't anywhere close to favourable!

Game 1: Testament of Menoth vs. Kaelyssa, The Night's Whisper (Retribution)

So my list is an infantry swarm that can keep bringing people back from the dead.  It consists of 50+ models and hopefully can just overwhelm the opposition.

However the list I played into was a pretty solid combined arms list with a Hyperion, single Heavy, Mage Hunters and combat unit.  The big problem was Phantom Hunter on Kaelyssa which meant that in order to collect souls Testament would need to be in danger.  The game started solidly with me running forward and replacing any kills back to life.  The sheer volume of models looked pretty impressive on the table.  Turn two and I lost around 20 models and Testament survived an assassination on him (just).  I then struck back and removed most of the mage hunters with sprays, ran the temple flameguard forward to keep people from zones and then Testament moved as far back as he could without sacrificing his ability to collect souls too heavily.  This was a mistake in the long run but seemed good at the time.  Turn three and Testament wasn't so lucky the sheer volume of shots from the battlegroup finished him off and Kaelyssa stealing his focus through her gun really didn't help!

So the list behaved as hoped and given another turn or two my oppponent would have clocked out or lost on control due to purely being pinned in place by the volume of models.  Hopefully next time will be better!

 Game 2: Amon Ad-Raza (Menoth) vs. Dawnlord Vyros (Retribution)

My collection when it comes to lights is a little sparse, aside from 6 repenters I've only really got one of each type so when it came to making this list I chose as many as I could fit in with Blood of Martyrs and a Reckoner.  This came to 9 jacks along with two choirs, a couple of warcks and an allegiant.  This list would be playing into a similar list as game 1 but with the Mage Hunters swapped out for Battle Mages and a Dragoon solo. 

Again it didn't really go to and isn't a drop in my favour at all.  With the flank for faction models and flank for warjacks once combat ensued it went downhill fast.  Equally due to Vengeance on the weapon masters there was a turn where i could either leave them alone and do nothing in my turn or throw everything at them and hope to kill as many as I could.  I opted for the latter in an effort to jam them back a turn whilst my own second line got ready to pounce.  Sadly I didn't roll very well and whilst i killed around half I didn't have the volume of attacks to cause enough damage.

The following turn I lost 2 heavies and 3 lights (and essentially lost the game).  My only hope was to trash the colossal, finish off the weaponmasters and hope for some bad dice rolls!  Surprisingly i managed to achieve both; amon feated and charged the weaponmasters using flashing blade to finish them off.  Then the first jack charged his heavy (more hoping to pin it in place away from Amon than cause damage).  Finally the two fully fuelled jacks hit the colossal and between them and synergy managed to one round Hyperion.  This isn't something I've done before and felt very satisfying (so this is why synergy is so good!)  Sadly the remaining heavy (Imperatus) moved past the pinning jack to hit Amon and reduce him to a few boxes before Vyros came in to finish him off.

Whilst the list was ok, being so focus starved each jack really needs two combat attacks to get the most out of synergy.  With this in mind I'm going to throw in some more heavies and see how I get on next time.

Blood and Oil 2016

Firstly I'd like to apologise for the lack of pictures, not knowing my opponents I didn't want them to feel awkward by me taking pictures.  Those I have includedhave all come courtesy of the event photographer from the event facebook page.

This year’s Blood and Oil event had 86 signed up players and was set to last 6 or 7 rounds depending on how the games worked out amongst the undefeated players.  I went with my aim being to win a game, which sounds ridiculous but considering my success rate recently at the local club I wasn’t expecting much.  My real reason for going was 6 games over two days coupled with going for a few beers with my mates and getting geeky about my hobby!


Friday dawned with us meeting up and having a few games as practice/to settle the nerves.  Whilst they were played on the clock they were very relaxed and involved lots of chatting and having a laugh.  We then waited for our fourth mammoth to finish work and then headed off to Leicester.  As we travelled down on the Friday, emotions in the car were a bit confused.  There were 4 of us and I’m pretty certain I was the most relaxed everyone else was quietly hoping to do well and find out just how good or bad our local meta is in the national sense.  A few beers in the pub when we got there and then Saturday morning dawned….

So that’s enough of the fluff, now down to serious game time!

Game 1: Thyra, Flame of Sorrow vs. Magnus the Warlord (Magnus2)

I’d pretty much decided in advance that (unless my opponent was going to play some list that would make her unplayable) I was going to drop Thyra.  The reason being simple – she was my safety net/crutch and the best way to calm my nerves.  My opponents options were Magnus1, Magnus2 and McBaine with him choosing Magnus2.  With the exception of having bought a small Magnus1 list on eBay the week before I know nothing about Mercs so this was a good start!

The game was take and hold (two flags, one friendly and one enemy) and knowing how Thyra plays and my opponents deployment I had my sights set on the enemy flag!  Whilst the game was carnage (Jacks with Unyielding are very tough and that feat is crippling!) the general idea of the game went to plan and was not to dissimilar to a lot of my games with Thyra.  Essentially it involved feeding my units to my opponent whilst clearing the flag in each of my turns to score 2 CP’s per turn.  This got progressively harder and in the final turn I only managed to win thanks to my opponent forgetting to move a jack in to contest (possibly thinking that the models currently contesting were enough).  I won the game but was down to around 6 models of my starting 24, still a CP win put me towards the top of the player lists after round one and meant that I’d achieved my goal of a win in the competition!

Game 2: Thyra, Flame of Sorrow vs. Baldur the Stonesoul (Baldur2)

So game two and I was downstairs, I didn’t anticipate being here for long (top 28 tables were downstairs) but thought I’d enjoy the experience.  I saw that I was playing into Circle with the options being Baldur1, Baldur2 or Krueger2.  I dropped Thyra as she’s my comfort drop and I couldn’t really see Kreoss1 doing particularly good into Baldur1.

This was the game where I learnt lesson #1 from the weekend: There seems to be a lack of Protectorate players down south.  Whilst my opponent knew roughly what they did I don’t think he’d played Thyra before and that was a key advantage to me.  The game was Extraction (the diamond one with a two flags on the middle line) and I hoped to start the scoring early with Thyra.  My opponent came forward quite cautiously trying to use the terrain to his advantage but in doing so came well within the threat ranges of my jacks.  A feat later and his heavies were falling left and right.  Crucial to this had been stripping the soul from Ghetorix with Kell and Alten the turn before leaving him pretty impotent to strike back.  The game ended with and attempt for Baldur to kill the Avatar in combat hoping to reduce my hitting power.  However he burned through all his focus and the Avatar was still up and running.  All that remained was me to ensure I scored points and then use the Avatar to smash him into the ground.  Win 2 – something was clearly wrong!

Game 3: High Exemplar Kreoss (Kreoss1) vs. Absylonia, Daughter of Everblight (Abby2)

 

Game three and for the first time I knew what I was playing, we have a Legion played at the mammoths and he loves to use Abby into Protectrate.  Seeing as I struggle with Thyra into Legion and I’d won my practice game with Kreoss1 into Legion I thought I’d give it a go.  Initially this turned out to be a horrible decision, with not much melee threat the beasts came galloping forward and soon my entire line was engaged, I’d also lost my two heavies and had a heavy a mere 3” from Kreoss1.  On the plus side fortify had been dropped in an effort to clear a zone and Abby was around 16” from my two redeemers.  So it was do or die, Kreoss walked up catching 90% of the Legion list in his control and with the exception of a few Serpentine beasts the all fell down.  Now at Def5 Abby was really vulnerable, the two aiming Redeemers needed 2’s to hit and luckily the dice for once didn’t misbehave.  6 POW14 boosted shots hit her and inevitably (even with a few 1s and 2s) she bit the dust.  An assassination on a Legion caster and being 3/0 – something was definitely clearly wrong!

Game 4: High Reclaimer Kreoss (Kreoss1) vs. Kommander Strakhov

Well by game 4 I was very confused, I'd won all three of my games and was playing on Table 1 (it’s worth noting that due to the matching process used this didn't mean I was first or second overall at this point).  It was also 6pm and I’ve been gaming solidly for around 6 hours, needless to say my head was fried and I was in need of a beer.  However instead of that I was paired up against Khador.

Looking through the lists I knew the overall gist of his lists, as I recall one cavalry, one armour and one infantry (but I could be wrong).  As mentioned previously my game plan for this game had been Kreoss1 in all my planning and looking through the lists I could see no issue with this.  Sadly that couldn’t have been further from the truth and I dropped my pop and drop caster straight into a completely steady/no knock down list.  My dice rolling also failed me and the game was a complete slaughter.  I lost the roll and ended up going first.  At deployment my Idrians were faced with charging Uhlans and widow makers, my Redeemers on the right were faced with a heavy and dragoon solo and my centre of two Reckoners, Kreoss1 and Rhoven was facing off against Behemoth and Ruin backed up by his caster, Strakhov.  Between my own confusion and the sheer speed of the Khador list ( I got the impression this is what the uninitiated feel when facing Thyra) it was a massacre.  On my feat turn the only thing I could knock down was Behemoth and I hoped I could cause enough damage to at least take this monster down.  However my dice failed me and the game was a complete rout, I think I ended up with a single model left by the end of the game.

Ah well, after a solid day 1 I was happy.  I’d battered my initial target of a single win and had really enjoyed my games although by 8:30 I was desperately in need of a rest, a beer (or two) and some food.

 

Game 5: Thyra, Flame of Sorrow vs. Wurmwood, Tree of Fate

Sunday morning and my first game was vs a WTC player using one of the casters I hadn’t tech’d against – this wasn’t going to be fun.  I dropped Thyra because I knew her and was hoping the native pathfinder in the Flame Bringers and her feat might help mitigate things.  I also found myself playing with a confidence that I haven’t felt before, it was completely unjustified but it was there!

So this game revolved around me making some pretty key mistakes, the first turn was standard but on the second I found that I had a few things in charge range and really wanted to close the gap.  To this end I feated to get my warriors into combat along with  going forward with Blood of Martyrs to smash the model in range and then sidestepping back to start the piece trade.  I also put up Gaze of Menoth and ran him forward trying to split his heavy hitters and stop them getting to close to my flag.  I also managed to get Enliven on both these jacks and Fire of Salvation behind ready to counter strike if needed.  I was pretty happy with this and thought I was close enough to still be a threat even when wormwood feated.

In short I was wrong, my opponent played the turn borderline perfect.  First he pinned in the jacks so they couldn’t enliven away.  My heart then dropped as he placed a proxy between Blood and the Avatar.  Ghetorix could stand between them both and still reach them both with his axe, I knew what was coming and it wasn’t going to be pretty!  So the inevitable happened and Megalith smashed blood for around ¾ of its boxes.  Then a Gorax primalled Ghetorix and he charged in levelling both Blood and the Avatar and looking threateningly close to my flag/caster.  Wurmwood went and feated meaning I couldn’t see Ghetorix though the forest.  In my turn I tried my best to claw back some control by using Fire to destroy Megalith and the Flame Bringers to smash through his back lines finishing off his skirmish screen and getting in amongst the various stones at the back.  It was a good start but really was a turn to late.  Having lost the piece trade game round 2 and not having the pieces to play the attrition game I was left hoping praying to the dice gods.  By the end of the game I was left with only Kell Bailoch cowering in a corner.

This game was a great lesson in how to play the game and knowing your opponent.  At the time I felt overwhelmed and that it was proof I had no right being where I was.  However in hindsight I thought I played ok, I kept my jacks safe with no spells from the choir with the exception of placing my jacks around an inch too close together I hadn’t made any major mistakes.  I was simply beaten by a better player and next time I’ll know to play better!

Game 6: Intercessor Kreoss (Kreoss3) vs. Father Lucant, Divinity Architect

  

Ah game 6, by this time I’d played more games of WMH in the last two days than I would in around 2-3 weeks normally.  My head was fully cabbaged, confidence gone and just wanting to head home and learn from my mistakes, but instead I had one last game to play and the scenario was linebreaker – the gods were clearly having a laugh at us all.  My face in the above picture shows how battered my brain was!

One thing I had realised from my last two games was that even the threat of Kreoss1 was enough to really effect what people dropped against me.  For the first time ever I consciously correctly guessed my opponents list and then picked my suitable counter for it.  Unfortunately given the choice between Thyra and Kreoss3 I opted for the latter thinking that I hadn’t played him yet and that as my armour cracking list why not drop it into a pretty heavy Convergence list? 

My dice were poor in this game, but my positioning was really bad.  I didn’t really have enough to both challenge my opponents flags and protect my own so ended up doing a half assed attempt at both.  I also split my forces either side of a wood and with no pathfinder this was a big mistake.  In short I ran my cavalry across the board hoping to smash up the nearest battle engine and begin the clock ticking over.  I also intended for my heavies to go forward and keep his heavies in the centre occupied while the control counter kept ticking.  It didn’t really happen though, with all of the boosts and sprays from the battle engines my warriors got battered, equally not knowing what Watcher did cost me Fire of Salvation.  When it came to the charge the battle engine was under Lucants feat and my three vengers and Gravus bounced off without taking it down.  All in all the game wasn’t meant to be, and by the time I finally killed the battle engine my left flank had completely folded and it was only a matter of time as I was unable to get to my flag to contest.

In Conclusion...

It took me a few days to properly think through my weekend; there had been some really good highs and then some crushing defeats (getting virtually tabled in my last three games wasn’t ideal!).  Still I’d hit my target of getting at least 1 win and having a good weekend away with the war gaming guys.  I was also really impressed with the friendly nature of all of my games, even with the competitive nature of the games I enjoyed them all and my opponents were all great win or lose.  I had a great weekend, played some really good players and desperately want to go back next year to see how I can do with another 12 months practice and hopefully using three lists that I know well so can drop with much more confidence. 

To finish; coming 28^th overall (from 86 entires) in my first masters and 3^rd in faction (from 8) I couldn’t have dreamed of a better result – roll on 2017 and the event moving to the University of Leicester and increasing to 128 players!