[Wargaming] Warmachine Colossals launch event

This month has seen the release of the latest expansion for Warmachine: Colossals. This new expansion has only two releases per faction (three for Mercenaries), but they're well worth the wait. Each faction has a new warcaster, which is a third incarnation of one of the Prime warcasters for the four original factions, and a colossal warjack. Unlike with the battle engines though, this time the Mercenaries aren't left out. Mounted on the same 120mm base as the battle engines, these new colossals primse to be game changing, and I can't wait for the Cryxian Kraken to be released.

The new Cygnar Stormwall colossal. That thing is scary to deal with. (Credit: David Brown)

Last Sunday, Worlds at War in Livingston held their Colossals launch event. Rather than being a tournament, launch events are free play. There’s a special scenario, but it’s just turn up and play as many games as you can. You earn points for completing certain tasks (such as playing 5 different opponents, winning by scenario, using an all battlegroup list etc.), and at the end of the day the person with the most points wins. The rules pack specifies 50 point games, but owing to the number of players signed up, coupled with the space and time available, it was decided to drop to 35 points.

The scenario for the event involved a central, 120mm objective marker to represent some kind of sanctuary or place of refuge. There were decent points available for bringing a fully modelled sanctuary, so I spent the weekend before the event building one. Since I play Cryx, who are currently invading the rest of the nations using an extensive network of underground tunnels, I decided to build a tunnel entrance. I was fairly pleased with how it turned out, even if it looks more like a cave than a tunnel entrance. But it was dead cheap to make, consisting of foam from some spare swimming floats I had lying around and a few skulls, and looks good.

My sanctuary in action during a four-player free-for-all. (Credit: David Brown)

The day started at 9am. I decided to play a four-player free-for-all to get started, and ended up facing a Khador player running Butcher and 5 heavy warjacks, a newer Khador player running Irusk and some Assualt Kommados (who negate a lot of my shooting), and a Cygnar player running epic Nemo with the Stormwall colossal. The Cygnar player was actually a bit of a nemesis of mine; I’ve faced Micahel at several tournements before, and he’s an excellent player who regularly places in the top 3. I took my fully painted Deneghra list, to earn a few points.

     Deneghra
     - Skarlock
     - Cankerworm
     - Ripjaw
     - Defiler
     Minimum Bane Thralls
     Minimum Bile Thralls
     Warwitch Siren
     Withershadow Combine
     Pistol Wraith
     Pistol Wraith

I boxed myself in a bit at the start, and ended up with a poor match-up for my Bile Thralls against the Kommandos. I managed to pull off a charge with the Cankerworm against the Stormwall, which Michael thought he’d protected himself against, but rolled really poorly on the damage and barely scratched it. I then went for an assassination run on Irusk, leaving him on two health, and Nemo2, taking him to about half. Unfortunately, two turns later the Cankerworm was mush and Deneghra was too close to the Stormwall. It didn’t end well. The Butcher ended up winning, shooting Nemo2 in the face with one of his heay warjacks, most of which were in fairly good shape and all of which were still running.

Part way through my second free-for-all game. (Credit: David Brown)

My second game was another free-for-all. The Khador player running Irusk was involved again, this time running Sorscha, and there was a tier 4, fully painted Baldur theme force, and Haley1 running another Stormwall. I decided to run my Witch Coven all battlegroup list. It was my first time running the Coven, and I have to say that they’re great fun to play. They have a lot of movement shenanigans that they can pull off, and the flexibility that effectively having three warcasters with a shared focus pool gives you is crazy.

     Witch Coven of Garlghast
     - Deathjack
     - Harrower
     - Cankerworm
     - Ripjaw
     - Deathripper
     - Nightwretch

The game followed a similar pattern to the previous one. The Baldur player advanced pretty much unmolested, whilst I was overly aggressive and tried to take on two players at once. I threatened Sorscha with the Deathjack, who stood in a wood and forced her on the defensive a bit. I then twice tried for an assassination run on Haley, first with my Deathripper, who failed completely, and then with the Cankerworm, who managed to take her to half health. In the same turn, I tried for a double assassination by throwing Sorscha's Juggernaught at her, but failed completely.

Just before my failed assassination run on Haley using the Cankerworm. Those 

Forge Guard are a little close for comfort. (Credit: David Brown)

I was then left with only the Witch Coven. Miraculously, I then succeeded with my assassination of Haley, using the classic Stygian Abyss spam method. That did however leave me wide open, and the Dwarves in Haley's army made short work of the Coven in the turn afterwards. In the end the game finished with Baldur teleporting around the Sanctuary and beating Sorscha's head in with his stone sword.

I then managed to get in two one-on-one games. The first was against Finlay, using Feora. Finlay is another player I've encountered before, having defeated him in my first ever tournament when the Harbinger succumbed to corrosion. He's still smarting from that! I'd not faced Feora before, but decided to continue my quest for points by using an all-ranged attack list. Not something you normally see from Cryx, and I wasn't expecting much, but it did better than I thought it would.

     Skarre2
     - Harrower
     - Leviathan
     - Nightwretch
     Minimum Bile Thralls
     Pistol Wraith
     Pistol Wraith
     Bloat Thrall
     Satyxis Raider Captain
     Saxon Orrick

This game was going quite well for a while. I used the Black Spot spell in combination with the Pistol Wraiths to take out most of his Knights Exemplar, then got tied up by Bastions. I pulled off a few Bile Thrall purges that corroded a lot of stuff, but sadly not Feora, and I was lobbing 5" templates from the Bloat Thrall and 3", line-of-sight ignoring templates from the Harrower at his support staff. I killed off most of his choir, and even managed to get some decent damage on Feora with deviations and the Leviathan, as Finlay kept leaving me narrow shooting lanes. I had Feora cornered, with a Pistol Wraith up in her face, Saxon Orrick threatening from behind, and my warjacks with shooting lanes. On the downside, I'd thrown away the Raider Captain, and the Avatar was almost within read of Skarre, but I'd blocked it with a couple of Bile Thralls and my feat. Finlay then pulled off a move that I absolutely hadn't seen coming, casting Blazing Effigy to remove the Bile Thralls and walking in with the Avatar to end the game. It was a great rematch, and really showcased how you can be on the ropes in Warmachine, but still pull off a win.

The start of my game against Tom's Retribution, led by Garryth. (Credit: David Brown)

My final game was against the organiser for the event, Tom, with his Retribution force led by Garryth. It was Tom that utterly destroyed me in the final round of the Worlds at War tournament; this time was a little closer, but I was still no match for his superior knowledge and understanding of the game, and his greater tactical nous. My list probably didn't help; again, I took an unconventional approach to earn a few more points, taking a tier 4 Terminus list.

     Terminus
     - Harrower
     - Leviathan
     - Skarlock
     Rengrave
     Maximum Revenant Crew, with 3 Rifleman weapon attachments
     Minimum Blackbane's Ghost Raiders

Not an optimal set-up for Terminus, but I was curious to see how it would fare. In my previous runs with Cryx's biggest warcaster, I'd had some success using the two crabjacks to blog line-of-sight. That wouldn't work against Tom's Mage Hunters, so I settled for using a big, regenerating brick as sacrificial pawn targets. Tom, it turned out, knew my models stats and capabilities better than I did, and surgically removed the key pieces. I managed to get some damage on Garryth, but not much, and before I knew it  I was out of pirates, and had Terminus engaged under Garryth's feat, which meant no focus usage. I had two options: go for a spray, or try and charge without being able to use focus. I went for the former, failed, and Garryth beat me into the ground. Tom was a gracious opponent, and very sporting about the whole thing, but I was outclassed really. Partly that was Tom being a better player, and part was the strengths of our lists. I'd like to try tier 4 again with Terminus, as it has some interesting bonuses that really get the list up the field quickly in the first turn, but at 35pts I think it might be better sticking to tier 3.

Close to the end point of my game against Tom. (Credit: David Brown)

After that the points were tallied up, and I cam in joint 5th of 14 players. I was pretty happy with that, as it was close in the midfield pack. Michael once again ran out a convincing winner though and the top 3 were all some way ahead of the rest of us. Overall though I had a fun, but tiring day, and I look forward to more open-play events in the future. They really have a different feel to them than the tournaments, and it was nice to play in a slightly more relaxed atmosphere with players willing to try unusual lists.