[Wargaming] "Worlds at War" April Steamroller

Yesterday I travelled down to "Worlds at War" in Livingston (well, Craigshill to be precise) to take part in my first Warmachine tournament of the year. I was really looking forward to it; I hadn't managed to get any games in at all up to that point this year, so these were going to be my first 4 games of the year. I was also eager to play some new opponents, as there were several people on the entry list that I'd not met before at my previous two tournaments. The tournament was a standard 35pt Steamroller event. Two lists, with character restrictions in place and reinforcements required. We could play each list as many times as we liked, including not at all if we wanted to.

I was fairly sure about my first list - a tier 3 Deneghra1 list that was tweaked from a list that I'd used previously. But my second list gave me pause. I considered taking one of the warcasters that I'd not used much/at all; Skarre2 and Terminus both crossed my mind. But in the end I went with Skarre1, with whom I have the most experience after Deneghra1.

My lists were thus:

Deneghra	-5		Pirate Queen Skarre	-6
*Nightwretch	4		*Harrower	10
*Nightwretch	4		*Deathripper	4
*Defiler	5		*Skarlock	2
*Deathripper	4
*Ripjaw	0	(Tier 3 Benefit)	Satyxis Raiders (10)	8
*Skarlock	2		*UA	2
			Mechanithralls (10)	5
Warwitch Siren	2		*Brute Thrall	1
Warwitch Siren	2		Satyxis Captain	2
Bile Thralls (6)	5		Necrosurgeon	2
Pistol Wraith	3		Withershadow	5
Pistol Wraith	3			35
Mechanithralls (10)	5		Reinforcements:
Brute Thrall	1		Bane Thralls (6)	5
	35	(Tier 3)	Saxon Orrick	2
Reinforcements:
Slayer	6
Necrotech	1

There were supposed to be 12 of us, but one player didn't turn up. Apparently he works night shifts, so no one was really that surprised. Unfortunately though that meant that we had a player with a bye each round. The spread of factions was pretty good too: 3 Retribution; 1 Cygnar; 1 Khador; 2 Cryx; 2 Trollbloods, and 2 Protectorate.

Round 1:

After my 1st turn in round 1, against Frazer and his Trollblood army led by Doomshaper2. (Credit: David Brown)

In round 1 I was matched up against Frazer and his Trollbloods. He had lists led by Doomshaper2 and Grissel2. I'd never played a Trollblood force before, let alone either of the warlocks. I chose my Skarre list, as the scenario (Close Quarters) required you to control the circular zone on the opposite side of the zone. I figured that the greater numbers in the Skarre list would be better at that, and the assassination focus of the Deneghra list would be hamstrung against the tough Trollblood warlocks. Frazer picked his Doomshaper2 list.

This was a good close game. I sent the Satyxis on an ill-judged, wide flanking manouever that just ended with them being fed piecemeal to an Axer. I also moved up to threaten the centre board, but stayed at a reasonable distance as I knew that Doomshaper could send his warbeasts across the table very quickly. I didn't realise just how quickly though! I ended my second turn with my two warjacks in my own zone, with Skarre just behind. Rök suddenly came flying across under a combination of the feat and an animus, scrapped the Harrower and Deathripper, and then moved into Skarre using Goad. My heart was in my mouth at that point. Fortunately he missed his berserk attack and rolled poorly on another, so despite using all 5 fury Skarre was left on 1 health. Phew. Frazer scored a control point that turn, which he took as a consolation prize.

Frazer's character Dire Troll, Rök.. Nasty, and surprisingly fast. (Credit: David Brown)

Sadly it was only prolonging the inevitable. I was left unable to feat, left it a turn too late to heal with the Necrosurgeon (I forgot about that ability), and got the Mechanithralls caught up with the Kriel warriors. Despite destroying Rök with Skarre and a charging Satyxis Captain, the Earthborn made it Skarre and promptly ate her. Loss by caster-kill, and down by 1 control point.

A great game to start the day. Frazer was a fun, friendly opponent, and after the game we chatted about what I could have done differently. Facing an unknown faction and warlock I felt on the back foot before the game even started, and under pressure during the whole game. I wasn't aggressive enough, and wasted the Satyxis (a running theme for the day).

Round 2:

The zombie horde! End of 1st turn during my round 2 game against Finlay and his Harbinger led Protectorate force. (Credit: David Brown)

Round 2 saw me drawn against Finlay and his Protectorate army. I was on more familiar ground here; Finlay and I had faced each other at the Kingdom of Adventure last year. That game saw the Harbinger fall to corrosion damage in a lucky win for me. Finlay stated straight away that he was using the Harbinger, so I considered giving him a rematch with my Deneghra list. But in the end I went with the Skarre list once more. Harbinger is very good at shutting down Deneghra's spell slinging style, and I know that Finlay would likely be running multiple heavy warjacks that my Deneghra list didn't really have an answer to. The scenario was restoration.

This game was very disappointing for me. I took a potshot at Finlay's objective in my second turn, but had to overextend my Harrower to do it. The Avatar and Crusader then came barrelling across to destroy both it, and my objective. Finlay also scored a control point at the same time, as I'd once again been cautious in my advance to stay as far out of the Harbinger's control radius as possible (it didn't really work). Sadly I then got too focused on killing the Avatar. I bundled it with Mechanithralls under Skarre's feat and Dark Guidance, but could only get the Brute Thrall into the Crusader. The Avatar was scrapped, but the Crusader survived with it's cortex and mace arm intact. I'd also only pushed one Mechanithrall into the zone, and that just barely. As soon as I ended my turn I saw what I'd done, and inwardly groaned. Sure enough, Finlay moved the Crusader over, killed the offending Mechanithrall, and that was the game. He also tried an assassination run on Skarre, who I'd left open, using Rhoven and his bodyguard, but was defeated by the timer otherwise that would probably have worked as well.

Lesson number 1 from this game - remember the scenario! Lesson number 2 was that I still needed to be more aggressive. I was again trying to use the Satyxis in a flanking role, but they should really have been on the other flank to threaten the Harbinger. Not a great game for me at all.

Round 3:

My set-up for the game against Alan, the pressganger running the event, during my bye in round 3. (Credit: David Brown)

I was unfortunate enough to get the bye this round, so I wandered around taking some photos and watching some of the games. I also took the opportunity to do a bit of shopping, picking up a full unit of Blackbane's ghost raiders for the Terminus theme force that I'm building. I also chatted to Frank, the owner of "Worlds at War", about the UK-wide stock issues with Privateer Press products, and the various games that are played at his shop. Then I was challenged to a game by Alan, the pressganger running the event (he blogs over at The Hairy Caber). Alan is primarily a Cryx player as well, and pulled out Deneghra2 to face me at the same scenario that the tournament players were tackling. I ran my Skarre list against him. I wasn't sure what to expect; I own Deneghra2 but have never used her, and I've read/heard a lot of thoughts about how horrible she is. In the end I won fairly easily through spell assassination, but I can't shake the nagging feeling that Alan handed me the game. I hit Deneghra with spells through my arcnode on my second turn, then on his following turn he didn't destroy the arcnode or really move Deneghra. I shrugged my shoulders and took her down with some more spells, but it seemed a little too easy really. Not much to learn from that game.

Round 4:

Mid game during my 4th round match with Iain's Garryth list from the Retribution. (Credit: David Brown)

The final round saw me matched up against Iain's Retribution. He had Kaelyssa and Garryth as his warcasters. I again picked Skarre, and he went with his Garryth list. The scenario was incursion.

This was the best game of the day. Iain was a brilliant opponent; personable, friendly, willing to chat during the game, and quite happy to put up with my rookie mistakes and brainfarts. We had a spectator for this game too, who kept offering me advice during the game, and reminding me of things that I'd forgotten or overlooked (he was a Cryx player, but had brought his Trollbloods to the tournament). It was well meant, and very helpful, but after a while it felt as though I was being held by the hand. He did tone it down as the game went on and became more tense though.

It felt as though this was the game in which I finally used the Satyxis at their best. I rammed them straight down Iain's throat, threatening both the centre and right objectives. They tied up this Halberdiers, and his light myrmidon with it's arcnode, and I even pulled off the double backlash trick to put some decent damage on Garryth. He responded by attacking the left objective with his Nyss Hunters, destroying my Deathripper. My second wave then jammed the middle of the board, with the Harrower becoming a pain in the side of the Hunters that never went away, and scored me a control point into the bargain. The mechanithralls then tied up the remainder of his force, and despite some hairy moments with their small control area were still there at the end of the game. I'd managed, despite a really stupid deployment, to get the Necrosurgeon up right behind them to collect body counters, and with the addition of the Halberdiers she had more than I could use. Iain was just unable to destroy all of the mechanithralls in one turn, so I kept bringing them back. The game ended in dice down, and I won on tiebreaker with my single control point.

Iain's Banshee myrmidon. A lovely model, although I'm still not sold on the shoulder mounted guns.

It also shows Iain's unusual, but strikingly well executed paint scheme. (Credit: David Brown)

Iain really suffered with his dice at some crucial points, but as he pointed out afterwards the luck wasn't all one sided. I had some horrible rolls as well, so it was a bit of a wash. A draw would have been the most fair outcome I think, but someone had to win on tiebreaker I suppose.

Lessons from this game? I need to work on my deployment, and be more careful with my command areas. I also need to work on my order of activations, as there were a few points where I could have used buffs/debuffs from other models to really maximise the damage I was putting out. Oh, and my perennial problem of forgetting to allocate focus reared it's head again.

At the end of the day the results table looked like this:

Michael Dick (Cryx)
Kevin Curran (Khador)
David Flynn (Retribution of Scyrah)
Tom Young (Retribution of Scyrah)
James Stevenson (Protectorate of Menoth)
Finlay Langlands (Protectorate of Menoth)
John Sinclair (Trollbloods)
David Brown (Cryx)
Frazer Penman (Trollbloods)
Iain Young (Retribution of Scyrah)
Ryan Hunter (Cygnar)

8th is a decent result, although it was interesting to see that I finished ahead of Frazer. I put that down to my bye in the 3rd round. It was also good to see Cryx winning the day; I've faced Michael at both of my previous forays into the tournament scene, and he's an excellent player.

I had great fun throughout the day, and it was good to get back into playing again. I was definitely rusty though, and learnt a lot from my opponents. I have to thank all four of them for being gracious, friendly, and accommodating of my errors. In fact the whole group were very welcoming, and I'm already looking forward to the next tournament in May. Hopefully I'll be able to give a better account of myself there!