[Wargaming] Guardians of Tyr (Northampton): Steamroller - 13/4/2014

Last Sunday I travelled down to Northampton for my second Warmachine tournament of the year. It was being held at Wargames Workshop Northampton, and being run by the 'Guardians of Tyr' gaming club. Despite a poor showing on my part in terms of results, I have to say that I had a really enjoyable day at what was a very well run tournament.

I've talked about my lists already, but to recap quickly they were as follows:

Venethrax                                                                                           Skarre
*Helldiver                                                                                           *Cankerworm
*Helldiver                                                                                           *Skarlock
*Skarlock                                                                                            Min. Blackbane's
Max. Bloodgorgers                                                                           Max. Satyxis Blood Witches
Max. Satyxis Raiders                                                                        *Blood Hag UA 
*Sea Witch UA                                                                                  Max. Soulhunters
Min. Bane Thralls                                                                              Darragh Wrathe
Gerlak                                                                                                   Machine Wraith
Pistol Wraith                                                                                       Min. Mechanithralls
Saxon Orrik                                                                                         Necrosurgeon & Stitch Thralls
Satyxis Raider Captain

That's a lot of models to transport around. I think I need a bigger tray. (Credit: David Brown)

Game 1: James Harrison (Retribution of Scyrah) - Destruction

James had a Rahn list with Aiyana & Holt, and an Issyria list. I was reasonably confident that he would take a look at my Skarre list and decide that he couldn't risk Issyria against all of that incorporeal, so would take Rahn. So I took Venethrax. James did indeed take Rahn, and talking to him afterwards his thought process pretty much mirrored mine. His list was:

Rahn

*Phoenix

*Phoenix

Max. Mage Hunter Infiltrators

*Eiryss3

Aiyana & Holt

Arcanist

Arcanist

House Shyeel Magister

House Shyeel Magister

I won the roll off and elected to go first. On my right flank was a curved hedge just slightly further than my advanced deployment line, then a shallow water feature level with the zone. There was a wall running left-to-right across the centre of the zone, a hill on my left flank on the edge of my deployment zone, and medium forest on the top left corner of the zone from my perspective that James could use. The Bloodgorgers went opposite that, with everything else fairly central. The Satyxis deployed on the far right to go over the hedge and through the water feature, taking advantage of their pathfinder. James deployed left-of-centre as I saw it, close to the trees, with the Infiltrators going in the forest.

This was a knock-down, drag-out game. We went to time, and at the end there wasn't much left on the board. James had Rahn, Aiyana, and his two Phoenix. I had Venethrax, my two Helldivers, my Skarlock, a couple of Bane Thralls, and Saxon. Rahn was down to about half health thanks to Feedback from the Satyxis, who'd been plinking away at one of the Phoenix. Their first wave fortunately took out it's shield generator, removing the option to combust for a couple of turns. That is until some clever whiplash manoeuvring by James got an arcanist close enough that he could walk base-to-base and repair it, at which point the entire Satyxis unit apart from the Sea Witch disappeared! On the other side of the board the Infiltrators and Bloodgorgers slowly whittled each other down, with the Bane Thralls going in as a second wave and the Helldivers popping up to take down Eiryss. At some point James' other Phoenix took out my objective once the Infiltrators had cleared out the Bloodgorgers, and that CP was the difference at the end of the game. I was in a position to charge his objective with Venethrax, but was leaving it until the end of the turn when dice down was called. Tiebreakers would almost certainly have gone in his favour though with the two Phoenix still standing.

0-1, 0 CP, 19 AP destroyed

Lessons learnt:

*Keep an eye on the round time, and do the important moves first!

*Try to kill the mechanics first!

Game 2: Alastair Rolt (Legion of Everblight) - Process of Elimination

Alastair had Lylyth and Thagrosh. Now the obvious choice against Legion might seem to be Venethrax, but a quick check of his lists showed that Alastair had little to no magic weapons in his lists. Which seemed to be the perfect opportunity for Skarre. Alastair picked the following:

Lylyth

*Angelius

*Angelius

Max. Raptors

Max. Arches

*UA

Strider Deathstalker

Shepherd

I won the roll off and again chose to go first. I figured that getting as far up the board as possible would be the best choice against Lylyth and her massed shooting. There was a wall in the zone on my left, with a couple of pieces of difficult terrain at each end. The middle of the board was entirely open, but there was a small forest right in front of the centre of my deployment zone. At the far end of the zone on my right was a hill. The Soulhunters, Darragh, and Machine Wraith went on the right, the Bloodwitches on the left with the Mechanithralls and Necrosurgeon poised to skirt the wood, and Blackbane's in the centre with Skarre and the Skarlock. Alastair put the Raptors against the Soulhunters, the Angelii, Lylyth, and Shepherd in the centre, and everything else on my left.

The casualties from Lylyth's feat turn. Ouch. (Credit: David Brown)

Turn one I zoomed everything up as far as I could. I didn't, however, mini-feat with the Blood Witches. Which proved to be a serious mistake, as Alastair declared a turn one feat and wiped them off the board. Only the Blood Hag survived. He also took down a few Mechanithralls. On the other flank however he was struggling to roll 7s with his Raptors, so only managed to take out two of the Soulhunters. The Angelii though did kill Darragh Wrathe, which was very irritating.

In response I cast Dark Guidance and Feat for five with Skarre, charging her up and into the open. I was trusting my feat and camped focus to save me (I was on three or four after a decent ritual sacrifice roll the previous turn), and was reasonably confident I could tie up most of his stuff. The Souhunters managed to take the Raptors down to one member, Blackbanes put some hurt on both Angelii and tied up some Archers, the Blood Hag made herself a nuisance, and the Cankerworm waster the focus that I gave it because I ended up without much for it to do except tie up more archers.

Looking good for me on the right flank, and ok on the left. But that Angelius just charged over the Blackbane's engaging

it to murder Skarre. Woops. (Credit: David Brown)

It all looked pretty good at this point. Except that I'd forgotten Angelii had flight. One ineffectual free strike later Skarre had an Angelius in her face, and it was game over in one swing. Thinking back though we also forgot that armour piercing only gives +2 against small based models, not half base armour, but I'm fairly confident that Skarre was dead anyway with the second Angelius waiting in the wings. 

0-2, 1 CP (after game scoring), 25 AP destroyed

Lessons learnt:

*Don't forget important rules!

*Don't leave Skarre hanging in the breeze, even on feat turn.

*Minifeat turn one with Bloodwitches against shooting.

Damn you flight! (Credit: David Brown)

Game 3: Callum Maccuaig (Khador) - Supply and Demand

Callum was playing two basically identical lists, and they were ones that I'd been eager to avoid. He had Vlad and Harkevich, both with a pair of colossals and some mechanics. Neither of my lists was really built to take on colossals, and both were limited in their armour cracking ability. I decided that my Skarre list was the better choice here for two reasons - incorporeal to get through the huge bases and at Harkevich as quickly as possible, and the Cankerworm for hopefully taking one down. Callum picked Harkevich.

Harkevich

*Conquest

*Conquest

Min. Battle Mechanics

Ouch. The zone had a t-shaped arrangement of walls, and there was another on my right flank inside my advanced deployment zone. On my left were a set of cargo containers, there were some crystal fields on the far left, and some Cryx mining rigs on the right flank. I put the Blood Witches on the right with the Cankerworm and Machine Wraith, the Soulhunters and Darragh Wrathe on my right, and everything else in the middle. Callum set his tiny army up completely dead-centre. I lost the roll and Callum chose to go first.

This is going to be tricky. (Credit: David Brown)

Learning from the previous game, I mini-feated with the witches turn 1, and again feated turn 2. In between those events the two Conquests took some potshots with their big guns, taking Darragh off his horse and killing off most of the Mechanithralls. Which were promptly brought back by the Necrosurgeon. The Feat turn wasn't particularly successful. I did some decent damage to the Conquest on my left with charging Blackbane's and Soulhunters, and took out the objective with the Blood Witches. Sadly I forgot to allocate to the Cankerworm, so wasn't able to do anything to the right hand Conquest. I also got some Blackbane's to the mechanics, killing one and placing the resulting ghost in combat with Harkevich. The next turn, after losing several models to sweeping Conquests, I got more Blackbane's into Harkevich to replace the ones that had died, and move the Soulhunters through the left-hand Conquest to threaten Harkevich. Unfortunately that allowed the left Conquest to trample to Skarre, but fortunately he wasn't able to kill her. I then surrounded Harkevich with three Blackbane's, three Soulhunters, and a Machine Wraith, I wasn't able to crack his feat+escort booster armour. I did set him on fire, but when that went out the Conquest promptly squished Skarre.

Harkevich is surrounded, but I can't make him pay. Skarre takes a Conquest to the face over two turns. (Credit: David Brown)

0-3, 2 CP, 27 AP destroyed

Lessons learnt:

*Leave something to block tramples.

*Remember to allocate focus (I've always struggled to remember this when it gets a bit tense)

Game 4: Ricky Freed (Cygnar) - Close Quarters

Ricky was fielding Kara Sloan with a bunch of warjacks and full Boomhowlers, and Haley2 with lots of gunmages. I couldn't take the chance with the Skarre list and the gunmages, so took Venethrax. Ricky dropped Haley2. Ugh.

Haley2

*Thorn

*Thunderhead

*Squire

Black 13th

Gun Mages

*UA

*Hunter

We were played on the same board as my previous game, and I was on the same side. I put the Bloodgorgers on the left, the Satyxis on the right, and everything else in the middle. Ricky won the roll and went first, promptly taking out the Satyxis Captain with a sniped Hunter on turn 1. Ouch. He feated turn 2, catching pretty much everything in my army except Saxon, the Skarlock, and the Helldivers (thanks to their burrowing). My response was to tie up as much as possible, but it didn't work particularly well. The Thunderhead then advanced and pulsed, taking out most of the Satyxis. The next turn I tried to Deathchill it but failed, and it pulsed again to remove most of the rest of the Satyxis, the Pistol Wraith, and some of the Bane Thralls, advancing Haley to his flag to score.

My assassination attempt failed spectacularly when I rolled triple 1s. (Credit: David Brown)

I had a slim chance, and went for it - I popped up a Helldiver very careful, loaded it with focus, and just managed to charge Haley past the Squire and over the flag. I had the distance, but the angle was very close. I then rolled triple 1 on the boosted charge attack, and that was that chance gone (the attack I bought promptly hit with boxcars and rolled 1,2 for damage. There was some weird dice luck on both side this game). So the other Helldiver headbutted the Thunderhead, and the remaining Bane Thralls and Venethrax scrapped him so that I could score a point. Ricky started pumping shots into Venethrax with everything he had, but it quickly became obvious that it wasn't going to be enough. So Haley scrapped the Helldiver and hit him with Time Bomb. Fortunately for me he wasn't close enough with the Hunter to contest, so we both scored. Carefully measuring showed that I was half an inch out on charging Haley thanks to the effects of Time Bomb, so I chucked a fully boosted Hellfire at her to take her down to five, and tried to tie up everything else. But another Time Bomb put Venethrax into the dirt. 

Venethrax gets shot to death. Again. (Credit: David Brown)

Lessons learnt:

*Haley2 is really, really annoying.

*Remember to feat!

0-4, 5 CP, 39 AP destroyed

Overall thoughts

I was a little disappointed with my performance, but not too much. Game 1 went to time, Game 3 was always going to be tough, and Game 4 was against Haley2 but was quite close. It's only really Game 2 where I feel that I played particularly poorly, but I won't make that mistake again!

The two lists performed fairly well. I wasn't particularly convinced by the Pistol Wraith in the Venethrax list, but am not sure what I'd replace him with. The Skarre list I really enjoyed playing, and it clearly gave all my opponents pause for thought at list selection, and during the games. It's fast, and murders infantry, but I can see where something a bit more durable (like the Bane Riders in the full 50pt version) would be useful, as the list dies pretty quickly once the shots start coming. As a pairing it was ok, but armour was definitely my weakness as Game 3 showed.

As I mentioned at the start, this was a really well run tournament. There was plenty of time between rounds to get moved around and set-up, and a decent lunch break. Everyone was very friendly, and I had four great games with four sporting opponents. What more could you want? (maybe a win I guess). The Guardians of Tyr clearly know what they're doing when it comes to Warmachine tournaments, so if you're in the vicinity of Northampton or Milton Keynes and can get to one of their events, I'd urge you to consider it.