[Wargaming] Worlds Gaming Day report

Last Sunday I travelled South for the inaugural Worlds Gaming day. Organised by the owner of Worlds at War, it was held at the Howden Park Centre in central Livingston, and featured tournaments for Warhammer 40K, Flames of War, and Warmachine/Hordes. It was a long day, starting at about 10:30 and going on until 18:45, but very enjoyable. I met lots of new players, all of whom were very friendly, and got to know some of the more familiar faces a little bit better. Not only that, but I even won half of my games!

I was taking part in the Warmachine/Hordes tournament, taking along my Cryx army. It was a 4 round steamroller, following the standard rules with the exception of the points level. The first three rounds were played at 35pts, with the final round played at the 50pt level. We ended up with 17 players, with every faction represented except Minions. Warmachine outnumbered Hordes, and Cryx were easily the most numerous faction. The complete breakdown was: 4 Cryx; 2 Khador; 1 Protectorate of Menoth; 2 Cygnar; 2 Retribution of Scyrah; 1 Mercenaries; 2 Legion of Everblight; 1 Circle of Orboros; 1 Trollbloods, and 1 Skorne.

I've previously discussed my thoughts on lists for the event on this blog, and the lists that I ended up taking were indeed somewhat similar to those that I mused on. However I did tweak them somewhat before the event. Partly this was owing to the lack of rules for a couple of key models, partly in an effort to take warcasters that I was comfortable with, and partly it was whimsy.

The 35pt lists that I took were as follows:

     Deneghra1
     - Deathripper
     - Deathripper
     - Cankerworm
     - Skarlock
     Full Bane
     Thralls
     Warwitch Siren
     Warwitch Siren
     Pistol Wraith
     Pistol Wraith
     Minimum Blackbane's
     Ghost Raiders
     Machine Wraith 

     Terminus
     - Leviathan
     - Harrower
     - Skarlock
     Full Bane Thralls
     Minimum Bile Thralls
     Withershadow Combine

The Terminus list is identical to the one that I discussed in my earlier post, but the Deneghra list required some tweaking. Character restrictions meant that I wasn't able to keep the Withershadow Combine with her, and my card for Gorman di Wulfe had yet to arrive. I swapped them for Blackbane's Ghost Raiders and a Machine Wraith to give me some more incorporeal models to annoy magic-light armies, and I also reverted back to the faithful Skarlock instead of Saxon Orrick. I thought long and hard about that last change, but in the end decided that I used more than just Ghost Walk with the Skarlock, and therefore opted for the extra flexibility.

Game 1 vs Irving Kerr-Smith (Mercenaries)
I'd encountered Irving at Skirmish 2011, and knew that he was relatively inexperienced. In some ways I was happy to be drawn against him, as I was confident of a win, but I did feel a bit sorry for Irving. He was running Magnus1 and Macbain, and picked the former. I decided to go with Deneghra to settle into the tournament using my more familiar warcaster. Unfortunately though I forgot to take any pictures of the game.

The scenario was "Process of Elimination". Irving won the dice off, and elected to go second. I set up the Machine Wraith and Pistol Wraiths on my left flank, to take and hold the hill there overlooking the left-hand zone,with the Bane Thralls ready to swarm the same zone, the warjacks on the right flank with the Sirens to go around/through the small wood and threaten the right-hand zone, Blackbane's in front of that zone, and Deneghra and the Skarlock in the centre.

The game went very well from my perspective. I was able to neuter his Nomad on my left flank, as Irving was worried about the Machine Wraith and got the warjack stuck behind a wall. The pistol wraiths and Eiryss2 exchanged shots for a while in an inconclusive manner, and the left-hand zone turned into an attrition war between my Bane Thralls, a unit of Steelhead Halberdiers, and Boomhowler's unit that I eventually won thanks to judicious use of Deneghra's feat and Crippling Grasp combined with the Bane Thralls inbuilt Dark Shroud. On the right flank I managed to pull off the Parasite and armour piercing combo with the Cankerworm on the the Renegade, but got the Cankerworm stuck in combat with the second unit of Steelheads and the Talon. I again won out though with the application of Blackbane's to convert the unit, and armour piercing again proved too much for a light warjacks. I also snuck one of my arcnodes all the way around the wood and into venom range of Magnus. Unfortunately it then took me 3 turns to kill him, as I just couldn't roll enough damage. I must have pumped 8 venoms into him all told, from both Deneghra and the two Sirens, but he eventually fell.

Sadly for Irving, I'd already managed to gain a point in the left-hand zone, forcing him to run Eiryss in to contest. In what turned out to be the last turn of the game I cleared both zones, and managed to take over the Nomad with my Machine Wraith. That meant a tabling for Irving with the assassination of Magnus, which I felt rather bad about. But Irving took it in good grace, and the game was played in good humour throughout. Irving shows some promise, but he's still unsure about some of the rules. By his own admission though he hasn't played very much, but he did say that he wants to get more games in.

Game 3 vs Ryan Hunter (Cygnar)
Ryan was a new face to me, and so was a lot of his faction. I've only ever faced Cygnar in 15pt games back at Kingdom of Adventure, and even then it was only two games against Stryker2. So much of what Ryan was packing was somewhat of a mystery. He had Kara Sloan and Siege, and picked Sloan. I decided to take Terminus out for his baptism by fire, as I felt that his two warcasters would have the tools to counter the main point of my Deneghra list, which was relative invulnerability to shooting.

The scenario was "Bunkers", which meant reinforcements were in play. Mine were a Machine Wraith and a minimum unit of Soulhunters, another model that I'd never played before.

End of my turn 1 in game 2 vs Ryan's Cygnar. (Credit: David Brown)

I again lost the roll-off and ended up as the first player. I deployed my warjacks and Terminus module to take and hold my defensive zone on the left. There was a nice hill occupying much of the zone, and I intended to make good use of the elevation bonuses. The Bane Thralls were set up go through the woods to take on my offensive zone on the right, with the Bile Thralls tagging along behind. The Withershadow Combine were deployed centrally to support both flanks.

This was a very close game. My left flank went as I intended, although it took me a bit longer than I wanted to get my firebase set up as I forgot to allocate focus on the first turn. The right flank was also going fairly well. I got some Bane Thralls into the zone but still within the woods, with the Bile Thralls looming behind them. The Soulhunters came in and absolutely murdered some Gun Mages over a couple of turns, and the Machine Wraith zoomed ahead to threaten Ryan's Cyclone.

It all seemed to be going well at this point. Game 2 vs Ryan's Cygnar. (Credit: David Brown)

After that it started to go wrong. Ryan's reinforcements came in and I was completely unable to hurt them - the warjacks were missing all of their shots in a very annoying fashion. Then Ryan popped Sloan's feat, murdered large swathes of my Bane Thralls and Bile Thralls, and did some serious damage to the Harrower. It's a nasty one that feat, that's for sure. I charged Terminus into the middle in response, popping my feat and aiming some Bile Thrall purges at his army. Sadly I'd misjudged the range slightly, and didn't get quite as many souls as I'd planned. Then I made the critical error. I charged the Leviathan into a Charger sitting near my defensive zone, but ended up completely out of the zone. It was perfectly feasible for me have stayed within it with the edge of my base, but I brain-farted and it cost me as the zone was now defended only by a badly hurt Harrower. Sure enough Ryan finished off the poor warjack, scored a control point and ran Sloan away from the hulking monstrosity preparing to charge her. As I was trying to figure out how to pull of the assassination dice down was called. At 1 control point each it went to tertiary tiebreaker, and I lost. Ryan had a Gun Mage Captain in his scoring zone, and I only had a single Bane Thrall which didn't count.

The end of my game 2 vs Ryan's Cygnar. Spot the fatal mistake! (Credit: David Brown)

A wonderfully close match which could have gone either way, and Ryan was a great opponent, even when it was getting very tense. I think that we were both feeling the pressure somewhat towards the end of the game, but it never got antagonistic. I look forward to meeting Ryan at future tournaments, and hopefully we can get some more games in. I was pleased with Terminus' first outing, and the Soulhunters exceeded my expectations. I definitely want to try them again; against light infantry they're killing machines!

Game 3 vs Jonathan Mitchell (Skorne)
Jonathan was another new face, and one of the few playing a Hordes faction. He had Skorne led by Morghoul or Makeda, including Molik Karn. Skorne are one of the factions that I've never faced, but I do own some, including both of his warlocks, so I had a vague idea as to the tricks he might have up his sleeve. I was particularly wary of Molik Karn, having read an awful lot about the "Molik Bullet" on the Privateer Press forums. In the end Jonathan picked Makeda, and I decided to go with Terminus. I had to think quite hard about this one though. With little to no shooting, my Deneghra list would arrive relatively unscathed. But I wasn't convinced that it would be able to hold it's own, and knew that Deneghra would easily succumb to Molik Karn. Terminus on the other hand might be able to weather his attacks, and could play the attrition game with the high-armour Skorne infantry. Jonathan also had lots of infantry in both lists to provide tasty souls to power-up Terminus' feat.

The scenario was "Incursion", and for the third time in 3 games I lost the roll-off and ended up as first player. My side of the board had a forest right in the middle, with linear obstacles on either side that created two small passages for me to move through. I set up Terminus and his warjack escort behind the forest, as they can all ignore it thanks to Pathfinder and Flight. The Bane Thralls and Skarlock aimed at the left gap, the Bile Thralls aimed at the right gap, and the Withershadow Combine filled in the gaps again.

My set-up for game 3 vs Jonathan's Skorne. (Credit: David Brown)

The game was fairly short. My first turn was a standard 'run everything forward affair', and after Jonathan did the same the left-hand objective disappeared. This wasn't ideal, as I'd weighted my advance to favour the centre and left flank. Fortunately Jonathan had matched me, and although he sent a couple of Praetorian Swordsmen over to the right-hand objective he wasn't able to claim any points. My second turn saw me move up and fire some pot-shots at the Praetorians, killing nothing as once more my warjacks couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I did, however, kill off the Tyrant Commander with the Bane Thralls. Jonathan engaged using his Praetorians, got rid of a few Bile Thralls using Molik, and feated using Makeda. On my following turn I was presented with a swathe of infantry to deal with, so I popped Terminus' feat. This time my warjacks actually killed something, the Bile Thralls purged all over the Praetorians, and the Bane Thralls wiped out a few more along with some of the Cataphract Cetratii on my left flank, and even the Withershadow Combine got in on the act with some sneaky Dark Fire bolts. At the end of the turn Terminus had collected about 12 souls, and was looking in a pretty good position.

Jonathan's Skorne army mid way through turn 1. (Credit: David Brown)

Then Makeda's feat brought all of the infantry that I'd killed back to life (I hadn't managed to completely wipe out the unit, and they jammed the centre once more. The Praetorians charged into the Bane Thralls, Withershadow and Skarlock, but didn't do much damage. Jonathan was very unlucky with his dice at this point; needing 7s or higher to kill the Bane Thralls, he kept rolling 6 on two dice. Even more telling was Molik Karn trying to charge the Leviathan sheltering Terminus, but falling just short and having to Fate Walker away to safety without swinging. If he'd made it, he would have been able to side-step into Terminus. To be honest I'm not sure how much damage he'd have been able to do with Terminus on something like armour 30, but it could have been nasty.

At the start of my turn I saw an opening. There was an almost large base sized hole just in front of Makeda, but Terminus was blocked by the warjacks and didn't have line of sight. I needed to get the Harrower out of the way, but he was blocked in by some Praetorians. I managed to kill two critical models with the Withershadow Combine, move the Skarlock out of the way, shuffle the Harrower around and get rid of the model engaging him, and also clear out a couple of other Praetorians to make the hole a little bigger. Checking my control range I was out of charge range of Makeda, but within reach distance if I charged a nearby Praetorian. I did so, and with nearly 20 focus after the feat turn in the previous round, Makeda stood no chance, even with two fury for transfers.

My second win of the day, and the list worked exactly as I intended it to when I designed it. I was helped somewhat by Jonathan feeding large numbers of single wound infantry to the meatgrinder, but the luck also went my way.

Game 4 vs Tom Young (Retribution of Scyrah)

I'd encountered Tom before at the April Annihilation event, but hadn't played him on that occasion. The impression that I had was of a competent, vocal player. In that I was underestimating him; it turns out that he's a very good player, and very vocal!

Tom was bringing an Ossyan led list at 50pts, to take on my Skarre list. After my previous discussion of possible lists I decided to go in a completely different direction, taking a 35pt list that I was comfortable with and adding some additional pieces. My list, in the end, looked like this:

     Skarre1
     - Harrower
     - Cankerworm
     - Ripjaw
     - Skarlock
     Full Mechanithralls + 1 Brute Thrall
     Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
     Full Satyxis Raiders + Sea Witch
     Satyxis Raider Captain
     Full Blackbane's Ghost Raiders
     Gudrun the Wanderer
     Machine Wraith
     Scrap Thralls

The scenario was "Gauntlet", and for the first time in the tournament I won the roll-off, choosing to go second. Tom seemed puzzled by this, which in turn puzzled me. In hindsight it might have been better to go first, but oh well. He was also very perturbed by my three full units of infantry!

The board had some beautiful model buildings on it, one in each quadrant with a large open space in the middle. I set up the Blackbane's Raiders behind the building on my left, the Harrower and Ripjaw next to that building with the Satyxis Captain, Skarre behind the Ripjaw, the Mechanithralls in the centre, the Machine Wraith behind the building on my right flank, and the Scrap Thralls, Skarlock and Necrosurgeon spread behind my lines. I then advance deployed the Satyxis on my left flank in front of Blackbane's crew, the Cankerworm just in front of the building on my right, and Gudrun on the edge of the wood on my right.

My set-up for game 4 vs Tom's Retribution. (Credit: David Brown)

Tom's first turn was a predictable 'run everything' affair, as was mine. I set the Satyxis up on my left flank behind the wood to threaten Tom's Dawnguard Invictors (forgetting that they couldn't see through the woods), and Gudrun threatening the right flank with the Machine Wraith and Cankerworm. Tom looked hard at the board, declared that he would be taking his extension that turn, and said "I've got to go for it, or I'm stuffed".  Ossyan feated, and removed the Brute Thrall with some spells. His Mage Hunters then moved up to get the entire unit in range of Skarre. Three aimed, shot through the Mechanithralls, and took her down to two health. Then the rest of the unit missed (needing 10s to hit), and I breathed a sigh of relief. But Tom wasn't finished. His Invictors moved up, and shot through the gap that Ossyan had opened between my warjacks and Mechanithralls to hit Skarre, but he wasn't able to put any damage on her. His warjacks had a go as well, but missed. He threw everything else he had at me, but it all either missed or rolled no damage. He even had to take out a couple of his own Invictors to get decent positioning. But at the end of the turn I was still standing, and had most of my army left, although he did surgically remove the Necrosurgeon with a Mage Hunter Assassin.

Unfortunately I couldn't feat, but Skarre moved up, cast Dark Guidance, and camped focus. The Raiders charged into the Invictors and murdered half of the unit with Power Swell. The Mechanithralls engaged the Mage Hunters and did horrible things to the unit. Gudrun charged the Assassin in the back and removed her in one fell swoop. Unfortunately I realised that I'd blocked the charge lane for my Ripjaw to the Manticore, so I ran the Blackbane's in front of Skarre, put the Stitch Thralls behind them, and ended my turn. I'd done a lot of damage, but I wasn't confident I would survive.

End of my turn 2. Game 4 vs Tom's Retribution. (Credit: David Brown)

In return, Tom moved his Manticore up and threw the Harrower through the Blackbane's into the Stitch Thralls, taking them out. Then Discordia moved up and sprayed through everything to hit Skarre. One boosted hit and damage later, and that was the end of the game.

Despite the fairly one-sided result, this was the most tense game of the tournament for me. There was no way that I should have survived Tom's turn 2; he really was beaten by the dice in his assassination run, and it was only a matter of time before Skarre went down. I made a decent hash of a retaliation, but  couldn't do enough to claw it back. I was always on the back foot to be honest, but I like how the army plays and will definitely try it out again. Much like at April Annihilation, I think my decision to put the Satyxis Raiders on the flank was the wrong one. Jamming them up the middle would, as Tom pointed out, have put serious pressure on his Mage Hunters and potentially prevented them from shooting. I still like them as a flanking force, but I'm considering putting some Soulhunters with Skarre to fulfil that role, freeing up the Raiders to act as central board control.

End-game vs Tom's Retribution. Skarre bites the dust. (Credit: David Brown)

At the end of the tournament, the standings looked like this:

1. Alisdair Johnstone - Cryx
2. David Kane - Khador
3. Michael Dick - Legion of Everblight
4. Tom Young - Retribution of Scyrah
5. David Grant - Circle of Orobos
6. James Stevenson - Protectorate of Menoth
7. Luke Mason - Cryx
8. Kevin Curran - Khador
9. Steve McConnachie - Legion
10. David Flynn - Retribution of Scyrah
11. David Brown - Cryx
12. Est Mount - Cryx
13. Ryan Hunter - Cygnar
14. John Sinclair - Trollbloods
15. Jonathan Mitchell - Skorne
16. Allan Gibb - Cygnar
17. Irving Kerr-Smith - Mercenaries

 I was pretty happy with 11th place, particularly given that Tom, my 4th opponent, finished in 4th overall. I had 4 enjoyable games, against 4 great opponents who all tested my lists in different ways. I've now played in four tournaments, all of which have been great fun. I'm already looking forward to the next one.

I took lots of photos on the day, of all three game systems, so I'll finish with a photodump!