Monday 28 May 2012
UK Masters 2012 Postscript: Day Two Game Reports
Game Five: Calandra vs Fiona the Black
Opponent: Rich Loxam
Scenario: Diversion
Artifice: Radial Scenario
Result: Win
Amongst Warmachine and Hordes players, Rich Loxam is a true gentleman.
My MVP in this game was easily the Axer. I do not know how exactly it happened but that Axer did incredible things. It destroyed a Nomad and Rocinante, it also killed a bunch of Boomhowler & Co, but that was after a couple of turns of utter fail against the Trollkin. It did everything the Earthborn could not (before the Earthborn died horribly because it couldn't hit anything other than 4+ Tough Trollkin models).
Eventually I managed to score a scenario point just before dice down through the ingenious use of my Feralgeist and a rushed Impaler. This did put Calandra in a drastically vulnerable position, something I was gravely concerned about, but with dice down potentially coming (there were a LOT of players standing around at this point, always a sign of impending dice down) it was a risk that I felt I had to make. Luckily for me Rich wasn't quite within assassination range with Fiona - I had forgotten that Fiona's weapon has Grievous Wounds, and Fiona had to take a free strike from the Axer on her way in. As I mentioned above, my MVP pulled through once again and all was happiness and sunshine in the land of trolls.
I thought I might have to drop out of the tournament about halfway through this game, as my ribs were really hurting and speaking was getting difficult at times, but it seemed to sort itself out by the end of the game.
Game Six: eDoomshaper vs Garryth
Opponent: David Flynn
Scenario: Incursion
Artifice: None
Result: Win
David also needs to work on his movement. Badly. Models cannot move through other models, and if I had my PG shirt on there would have been words. However, after calling him on it a few times as a player, you just feel like such a douchebag and you can feel the enjoyment of the game starting to drain so I just let it go and got on with the game.
I was definitely on the back foot for a good part of the game, since many of my models were stuck in a forest on my side of the board, and David was butchering my heavies with his Sentinels. Eventually however, the strength of my warbeasts began to shine through, as my Mauler and Axer managed to kill pretty much all the Sentinels near the end of the game (granted I didn't have much of a battlegroup left at this point).
On the right flank my Bog Trogs and Bomber were clearing up the board, though I missed out on a control point early on by forgetting my Refuge movement (BLARG!). That combo was really awesome, they cleared out an incredible amount of David's army there.
Eventually Garryth was forced to commit himself in an attempt to take down the Dire Troll Mauler, but at ARM 20 it pretty much shrugged off all his attacks. The following turn the Mauler with Wild Aggression ate Garryth.
Game Seven: pDoomshaper vs eVayl
Opponent: Steven McConnachie
Scenario: A Flag Too Far
Artifice: Reinforcements
Result: Win
I didn't realise I'd played Steven before until he mentioned it, and I remembered I'd played him at one of the Livingston tournaments, where he took a very unusual eLylyth list filled with Blighted Ogrun Warspears. Clearly Steven's invested in making more robust lists.
This is probably the game where I played my best, and pDoomshaper is probably a horrific match-up for eVayl. She has a lot of upkeeps and relies heavily on three key spells: Admonition, Refuge, and Obliteration. I made a mistake early on that very nearly cost me the game by not putting Banishing Ward on pDoomshaper as soon as I could, as once I had eVayl on the backfoot she promptly dropped some Obliterations on pDoomshaper. Needless to say, next turn I put Banishing Ward up.
Eventually Steven conceded once I'd killed all his warbeasts except a Ravagore and had a possessed Angelius of my own running around (it did horrific things to a Ravagore). I can see why eVayl is regarded as such a powerful caster now, but I think I found a hard counter for her.
My last game appears to have been entered wrongly into the final standings, which places me somewhere in the top 20 - as I mentioned in one of the earlier posts, I *think* I'm 18th. Overall, quite happy with my performance. I'm ecstatic that I didn't have to play Cryx once during the tournament - unlike Matt Oakley who had to play against eDeneghra four times.
UK Masters 2012 Postscript: Day One Game Reports
Game One: eDoomshaper vs pVlad
Opponent: Jay Taylor
Scenario: Bunkers
Artifice: Reinforcements
Result: Win
Jay's list was a pVlad themed force. With 13 Berserkers. This, I was not expecting. However Jay did put pVlad too close to a table edge and I ambushed him with 4 of my Bog Trogs. Unfortunately I rolled two sets of snake eyes so he didn't die instant. I did force Jay to commit a number of Berserkers into defending his zone simply by running my Feralgeist up there. With his lack of magical weapons there wasn't a lot he could do to get rid of it.
After several turns of beating up Berserkers in my zone, I managed to clear out enough of a space for Rök to be able to charge pVlad in the back, taking down the Dark Prince with Wild Aggression combined with Primal.
Game Two: Calandra vs eStryker
Opponent: Dan Holt
Scenario: Close Quarters
Artifice: Kill Box
Result: Win
Dan needs to work on his movement. Bendy tape measures will get him in trouble if I'm PG'ing. Not that it hugely mattered, he was pretty badly hammering my list for most of the game. I was killing off all his Stormblades (and there were a lot of those) and doing a lot of damage to his warjacks but I wasn't killing them. Dan on the other hand was happily killing my warbeasts. However, he brought eStryker and Ol' Rowdy forward in an effort to set up for the kill next turn and I pulled out one of my better tricks of the tournament.
The Runebearer hit Ol' Rowdy with a Befuddle, moving the warjack away from eStryker and allowing Calandra herself to hit eStryker with a Force Blow. I missed the first attack roll but used Fate-Blessed to get the re-roll (that ability borders on over-powered) and rolled massive damage. That put eStryker on the ground, so I shot him with the War Wagon's giant cannon.
Game Three: pDoomshaper vs eLylyth
Opponent: Tony Moore
Scenario: Demolition
Artifice: Interactive Objective
Result: Loss
Tony is the only person where the new Shield Guard ruling came into effect, for which he gets rated as my worst opponent; which isn't really saying much, he was still fun to play. I have come to the conclusion that almost no Legion players are actually aware that Ravagore shots have dual damage types (fire and corrosion). Having conversed with a number of Legion players they were adamant that the Ravagore shot was fire only - if you are a Legion player, the Ravagore has dual elemental damage, please look at your card. This meant that they totally ignored the Slag Troll in my Calandra list and took eLylyth anyway.
Still, all my support in my list got hammered very quickly and I was very unlucky with deviations on the War Wagon so the bajillion Striders I was fighting survived an awfully long time. However, eLylyth went for an assassination run against pDoomshaper while my feat was up and I managed to get her down to two health and her last fury when Tony bought a shot. So I rolled that dice and... it was a one. That was tragic in the extreme, but them's the breaks.
Then pDoomshaper did his best impression of an arrow-filled hedgehog.
Game Four: pDoomshaper vs eKrueger
Opponent: Ross Silvers
Scenario: Destruction
Artifice: Interactive Objective
Result: Loss
I play against Ross a lot, so I was pretty gutted I was drawn against him. He also knows my pDoomshaper list very well. Normally I'd have expected him to pull out eKaya, but she got absolutely hammered in our last outting, and I was still fairly surprised that he opted for eKrueger.
The basics of the game were that I went for the assassination run early, and if it were a friendly game I'm pretty sure I'd have got it but this is the Masters, so I wasn't willing to ask Ross if I could move my War Wagon a bit further so that it could shoot his Celestial Fulcrum instead of the druid standing next to eKrueger. So it missed, which meant eKrueger wasn't knocked down when Mulg arrived and it all sort of went downhill from there. I then pretty much spent the game trolling (forum-style) eKrueger and knocking him down over and over again. Unfortunately I had no follow-up at any time. Ah well, next time Silvers, next time!
So I finished day one with two wins and two losses. My two losses were pretty close though so I wasn't overly fussed.
Opponent: Jay Taylor
Scenario: Bunkers
Artifice: Reinforcements
Result: Win
Jay's list was a pVlad themed force. With 13 Berserkers. This, I was not expecting. However Jay did put pVlad too close to a table edge and I ambushed him with 4 of my Bog Trogs. Unfortunately I rolled two sets of snake eyes so he didn't die instant. I did force Jay to commit a number of Berserkers into defending his zone simply by running my Feralgeist up there. With his lack of magical weapons there wasn't a lot he could do to get rid of it.
After several turns of beating up Berserkers in my zone, I managed to clear out enough of a space for Rök to be able to charge pVlad in the back, taking down the Dark Prince with Wild Aggression combined with Primal.
Game Two: Calandra vs eStryker
Opponent: Dan Holt
Scenario: Close Quarters
Artifice: Kill Box
Result: Win
Dan needs to work on his movement. Bendy tape measures will get him in trouble if I'm PG'ing. Not that it hugely mattered, he was pretty badly hammering my list for most of the game. I was killing off all his Stormblades (and there were a lot of those) and doing a lot of damage to his warjacks but I wasn't killing them. Dan on the other hand was happily killing my warbeasts. However, he brought eStryker and Ol' Rowdy forward in an effort to set up for the kill next turn and I pulled out one of my better tricks of the tournament.
The Runebearer hit Ol' Rowdy with a Befuddle, moving the warjack away from eStryker and allowing Calandra herself to hit eStryker with a Force Blow. I missed the first attack roll but used Fate-Blessed to get the re-roll (that ability borders on over-powered) and rolled massive damage. That put eStryker on the ground, so I shot him with the War Wagon's giant cannon.
Game Three: pDoomshaper vs eLylyth
Opponent: Tony Moore
Scenario: Demolition
Artifice: Interactive Objective
Result: Loss
Tony is the only person where the new Shield Guard ruling came into effect, for which he gets rated as my worst opponent; which isn't really saying much, he was still fun to play. I have come to the conclusion that almost no Legion players are actually aware that Ravagore shots have dual damage types (fire and corrosion). Having conversed with a number of Legion players they were adamant that the Ravagore shot was fire only - if you are a Legion player, the Ravagore has dual elemental damage, please look at your card. This meant that they totally ignored the Slag Troll in my Calandra list and took eLylyth anyway.
Still, all my support in my list got hammered very quickly and I was very unlucky with deviations on the War Wagon so the bajillion Striders I was fighting survived an awfully long time. However, eLylyth went for an assassination run against pDoomshaper while my feat was up and I managed to get her down to two health and her last fury when Tony bought a shot. So I rolled that dice and... it was a one. That was tragic in the extreme, but them's the breaks.
Then pDoomshaper did his best impression of an arrow-filled hedgehog.
Game Four: pDoomshaper vs eKrueger
Opponent: Ross Silvers
Scenario: Destruction
Artifice: Interactive Objective
Result: Loss
I play against Ross a lot, so I was pretty gutted I was drawn against him. He also knows my pDoomshaper list very well. Normally I'd have expected him to pull out eKaya, but she got absolutely hammered in our last outting, and I was still fairly surprised that he opted for eKrueger.
The basics of the game were that I went for the assassination run early, and if it were a friendly game I'm pretty sure I'd have got it but this is the Masters, so I wasn't willing to ask Ross if I could move my War Wagon a bit further so that it could shoot his Celestial Fulcrum instead of the druid standing next to eKrueger. So it missed, which meant eKrueger wasn't knocked down when Mulg arrived and it all sort of went downhill from there. I then pretty much spent the game trolling (forum-style) eKrueger and knocking him down over and over again. Unfortunately I had no follow-up at any time. Ah well, next time Silvers, next time!
So I finished day one with two wins and two losses. My two losses were pretty close though so I wasn't overly fussed.
UK Masters 2012 Postscript: Part One
This year's UK Masters was a great deal more fun than last year's one. I went in with two goals in mind: win more than half my games, and just have fun. There's no point in getting stressed about moving little metal men around a table, and I think the change in attitude really increased my enjoyment.
Overall I finished on 5 wins, 2 losses; and all my games were really quite enjoyable. Unfortunately my last game was erroneously entered as a loss and so my final standing is a bit of a mystery. I believe I'm 18th (*much* better than last year's 61st) since that's where Steven McConnachie (my last opponent) placed. I think the majority of the Scottish players are in the top half of the table.
I'm really quite surprised as how many tricks Calandra has. In her games I made massive use of Befuddle, Force Blow, and her Fate-Blessed ability. Between those three abilities I could pull assassinations or surprise attacks out of nowhere. I also discovered pDoomshaper is almost a hard counter against eVayl. That made me very happy indeed.
My three lists were as follows:
pDoomshaper
+Mulg
+Dire Troll Mauler
+Troll Axer
+Troll Axer
+Troll Bouncer
KSB (min) + UA
Janissa Stonetide
Troll Whelps
Feralgeist
War Wagon
Reinforcements:
Trollkin Runeshapers
Trollkin Scouts
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
eDoomshaper
+Rök
+Dire Troll Mauler
+Dire Troll Bomber
+Troll Axer
+Troll Axer
+Trollkin Runebearer
KSB (min) + UA
Troll Whelps
Feralgeist
Bog Trog Ambushers
Reinforcements:
Trollkin Runeshapers
Trollkin Scouts
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
Calandra
+Earthborn Dire Troll
+Dire Troll Bomber
+Troll Axer
+Troll Impaler
+Slag Troll
+Trollkin Runebearer
KSB (min) + UA
Troll Whelps
Feralgeist
War Wagon
Reinforcements:
Nyss Hunters (max)
I also think I bruised or cracked a rib on the Friday night when I attempted to elbow drop Alasdair but he sat up thinking I wasn't about to land on him. This meant my ribs landed on his shoulder and now it's extremely painful when lying down or having to tense that part of my torso (like when I put on the handbrake in the jeep). I will have to plot a suitable revenge.
Overall I finished on 5 wins, 2 losses; and all my games were really quite enjoyable. Unfortunately my last game was erroneously entered as a loss and so my final standing is a bit of a mystery. I believe I'm 18th (*much* better than last year's 61st) since that's where Steven McConnachie (my last opponent) placed. I think the majority of the Scottish players are in the top half of the table.
I'm really quite surprised as how many tricks Calandra has. In her games I made massive use of Befuddle, Force Blow, and her Fate-Blessed ability. Between those three abilities I could pull assassinations or surprise attacks out of nowhere. I also discovered pDoomshaper is almost a hard counter against eVayl. That made me very happy indeed.
My three lists were as follows:
pDoomshaper
+Mulg
+Dire Troll Mauler
+Troll Axer
+Troll Axer
+Troll Bouncer
KSB (min) + UA
Janissa Stonetide
Troll Whelps
Feralgeist
War Wagon
Reinforcements:
Trollkin Runeshapers
Trollkin Scouts
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
eDoomshaper
+Rök
+Dire Troll Mauler
+Dire Troll Bomber
+Troll Axer
+Troll Axer
+Trollkin Runebearer
KSB (min) + UA
Troll Whelps
Feralgeist
Bog Trog Ambushers
Reinforcements:
Trollkin Runeshapers
Trollkin Scouts
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew
Calandra
+Earthborn Dire Troll
+Dire Troll Bomber
+Troll Axer
+Troll Impaler
+Slag Troll
+Trollkin Runebearer
KSB (min) + UA
Troll Whelps
Feralgeist
War Wagon
Reinforcements:
Nyss Hunters (max)
I also think I bruised or cracked a rib on the Friday night when I attempted to elbow drop Alasdair but he sat up thinking I wasn't about to land on him. This meant my ribs landed on his shoulder and now it's extremely painful when lying down or having to tense that part of my torso (like when I put on the handbrake in the jeep). I will have to plot a suitable revenge.
Wednesday 16 May 2012
UK Masters: Paired Off
The first round pairings are up on the Warhammer Forums for perusal by all and sundry. Pete made a handy table and then turned it into a graphic (you can't see me gritting my teeth at this, but trust me, I'm totally gritting my teeth). So in time honored fashion, I am re-posting the very same image. Go me.
I'm up against Jay Taylor, who I believe was playing Cygnar last year. I did some sneaky research on RHQ but it doesn't really tell me much. I'm quite happy to be playing against Khador though, so it's all happiness and sunshine for me. Not so for Riki, who is probably going to end up playing against Barnabus and unshootable horde. Or Alasdair who is playing against Cryx (AHHHH, sweet, sweet justice).
I'm up against Jay Taylor, who I believe was playing Cygnar last year. I did some sneaky research on RHQ but it doesn't really tell me much. I'm quite happy to be playing against Khador though, so it's all happiness and sunshine for me. Not so for Riki, who is probably going to end up playing against Barnabus and unshootable horde. Or Alasdair who is playing against Cryx (AHHHH, sweet, sweet justice).
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