Camp Zama Army Base Steamroller 35 point report.

 2 Japanese, a Colombian a Spaniard an American and a Kiwi walk into a bar... 

Apologies for not putting fancy lines and boxes with information inside these pictures, but the quantity was just to great after such a long day to get the report written and fancied up at the same time. So onwards with old school batreps.

Old school batreps.

As the title suggests on this day January the 17th saw U.S Army base Camp Zama host to a small but furious 35 point steamroller tournament.

6 players in total with the factions and top 3 places represented as follows.

1st place. Retribution: Yours truly. Issyria and Ossyan
2nd place. Circle: Epic Kaya and Kromac
3rd place. Cryx: Witch Coven and Mortenebra

Followed up by, in no particular order.

Trolls: pMadrak and something?
Trolls: eMadrak and something?
Minions: Rask and Caliban.

My lists were

• Lord Arcanist Ossyan
• Infiltrators with 3 Eyriss
• Imperitus
• Invictors with Unit Attachment
•  Artificer
• Arcanist
• Magister

• Issyria Sybil of Dawn
• Mage Hunter Strike Force with Unit Attachment
• Banshee
• Storm Fall Archers
• Storm Fall Arhcers
• Aiyanna and Holt
• Mage Hunter Assassin
• Mage Hunter Assassin
• Narn mage Hunter of Ios

I spent a lot of spare time during the week thinking about these lists and as always after many agonising hours of convincing myself not to play Garyth and pVyros (because believe me I really wanted to) I chose these lists not out of any calculated reasoning but because I quite literary could no longer agonise over 1: Covering every potential match up that I was expecting to encounter and 2) delivering enough answers and problems wrapped up in 35 points.

I really wanted to play Garyth and pVyros.

I believe that outside of the Mage Hunter Strike Force, but also including it, the Retribution of Scyrah is a faction that usually has answers to problems other forces create. Unless the problem is tough, it used to be stealth but now we just kind of roll over and take it when it comes to tough spam. Or I do at least. Because of this I ended up with lists that were designed to deal with as many potential problems as I could expect to encounter.

We just kind of roll over and take it when it comes to tough, or I do at least.

The Ossyan list...

Was supposed to have the Infiltrators running up the center or on the flanks, depending on what they were facing and basically getting in the way and screening the Invictors and allowing Imperitus to set up assassination runs. This never actually happened.

The one game I played Ossyan in went as follows.

Game 1 Ossyan vs pMadrak

Scenario: Recon

pMadrak? or E? Not sure big angry smurf with an axe.
Mulg, the biggest angriest smurf with a caber.
Warders
Burrowers
Kriel stone smurfs.

Trolls has the first turn and advanced up on the left flank through the patches of woods.

So shortly after my first turn I realized that I should have sent my Infiltrators screaming up the OTHER flank so they could get stuck into his Kriel stone. However I contented myself in the false belief that tying up a couple of his warders was a worthy exercise.

Imperitus also advanced directly into the kill zone of his burrowers, without Quicken or the Artificers force wall.

All the troll player was missing was longbows.

This overall was a terrible strategy, I was bottle-necked through the middle of the table through 2 forests and around the center objective. All the troll player was missing was longbows.

Burrowers pop up and don't do much damage to Imperitus but kill about 3 Invictors.

For Ossyan having his gunline engaged or otherwise blocking their line of sight on the second turn is pretty bad. He needs the space to bring those guns to bear to utilize the feat turn.

Never mind all I have to do is kill a couple Burrowers and with sidestep and admonition I can set up to still be a threat to Mulg without trading out.

Imperitus gets 3 focus, the magister charges in and combo smites a Pyg, it toughs, so does its friend. Imperitus hits it, it toughs. he hits it again, it toughs again, he hits it again, it toughs again. I panic. He hits a different one, it toughs, he hits it again then it dies.

It toughs again. I panic.

By this time I am well and very done with Tough. Yet the Invictors now who have failed to have a path cleared for them or a decent line of sight to his caster created now try to kill Pygs who continue to roll tough rolls.

Ossyan with a lack of imagination advances and shoots Mulg putting a Chronophage down on him.

 /rant Ok whatever, hey I said it before Ill say it again. PP get your shit together and fix tough, its wrong. /rant

So its at this point that I might stop calling them Burrowers and start calling them Borrowers, like borrowing luck, not just for themselves but for his whole army. The Warders just walk up and roll 7s to wipe out most of my flanking force the Burrowers almost kill Imperitus and the rest of his army chillax in the forest with Mulg sitting there waiting for something to do.

What he does do is after a Warpath move he advances up on Imperitus and falls short.

Normally when the key heavy character warbeast tried to kill your key heavy character jack and misses utterly you turn around and kill it and start to win the game, this however didn't happen.

• First of all Eyriss couldn't get close enough to shoot the Kriel stone and strip its fury without getting engaged by the Warders. So Mulg was arm 21. 
• Secondly I still needed to clear damn Pygs out of the way to get Imperitus in and thirdly I have absolutely no faith in Imperitus with 3 focus and Concentrated power to be able to kill Mulg, well anything at all for that matter but especially Mulg.

Yes thats right, I think one of our hardest hitting melee specialized jacks is still a limp wristed dandelion puff and for the most part still rely on my Infantry to do anything that seriously needs to be done. The problem was my Infantry was dieing in droves and I wasn't getting  much done.

It is my experience that Ret jacks are not beat sticks, they are more utility pieces, tools to apply pressure and open spaces or opportunities when they arise. Imperitus for me wants to stay alive and hold zones and put down assassination threats, he doesn't enable like the Banshee or Daemon does but gives a pretty good threat to enemy casterlocks.Not kill giant heavily armored meaty smurfing death machines.

So What happens is the Invictors make space for the Magister to Whipsnap Imperitus out so he has enough range to threat on Madrak. All I need is for him to not roll tough rolls, well that and to not roll another 7 and kill Eyriss with a free strike so she can Arcane Hemorrhage Madrak. Of course he doesnt tough, but he does roll that 7, and the assassination is doomed for failure. So Imperitus settles for killing most of his Kriel stone unit.

Unimpressed Mulg turns around and pounds Imperitus into the dirt. Actually he doesn't quite, because of Pheonix Protocol.


At this point in the game 2 things are worth mentioning.

1. The pictures are getting blurier and blurier as my deep rage over tough and my opponents ability to roll over 7s like they are 5s is boiling up inside me
2. My Arcanist fails its repair check. I didn't mention this because this always happens. This should not be something that always happens, repair (8) is good. But I can honestly say I remember one time in the last 7 that it actually managed to repair something, and that was for 1 point of damage. Seriously whats going on here?

But actually Madrak burns all of his fury finishing off Imperitus and at this point I am happy with what Imperitus has managed to achieve. In a round about way he gave me my only shot at winning this game by being just tanky enough to make Madrak burn all of his fury.

This was my only chance to snap a win from the smurfy jaws of defeat. Not a good chance mind you, if everything goes well, with above avverage odds of hitting I still have lets see. pow 13 4d6 3 or 4 power 12s with 3d6 2 more power 12s he has arm 16? 17? loads of boxes and sac pawn kind of thing and tough and blah blah blah...

Whatever 8s on 3d6, I can do this...

No I cant

still have 3 arcantric bolts and 3 or 4 Invictors to do this under feat damage, sweet as...

No its not...

The best part about this turn was using beat back to push a warder close enough for my Magister to slam said warder into the Artificer.

 Mulg used a protective fit to half kill Ossyan and then finished him off with a dismissive back hand.

A dismissive back hand.

0 Control points scored

Trolls win on assassination

tough is broken

I'm terrible at game.

Game 2 Issyria vs eKaya

After the resounding disappointment of the last game I went with my Issyria list to deliver MHA justice to face.

Such a pretty table mat.

eKaya
Goat that slams things lots
New Goat with shiny bits
Ravagers with UA
Witch Doctor of broken tough giving painfulness
Stones no UA
Ravager Chieftain White Mane
War Wolves?

So after deployment I realized I said I would go first.
I ponderd this...
15" charging Ravagers, why did I want to go first? I want him to spend his first turn running into my guns...

So my first amazing turn was spent advancing my front line only 2 inches and bringing the rest of my army up behind it.


And his amazing first turn was spent advancing into range of my guns as was meant to happen on his first turn.

Then my second turn wasn spent killing him with aforementioned guns.

Banshee gets a focus and puts it to use knocking down the Gnarlhorn.
So Issyria advances casts Crusaders Call and Feats and possibly smirks.
She ancillary attacks the Banshee and it slams knocks down and kills 2 Ravagers who of course TOUGH! (I will shortly completely get over my rage at tough but at this stage I was still pretty bitter towards it)

and possibly smirks...

The first Mage Hunter Assassin charges the Character or Shadowhorn Satyr (I honestly didn't know what it was I just knew it was going to suffer chain weapon justice) The first almost kills it and the second does kill it. The storm fall archers on the right step up and kill the Gnarlhorn and the archers on the left kill some Ravagers while the Strike force also kill some Ravagers.

It was after all a pretty ball busting turn for the Circle player so he went to do the only thing I thought he could do. Well no he had that option and the possibility of Charging his White Mane in for hilarity and good times. But he didnt. It seriously could have eaten its way through 2 units of elves tho.

Anyway Laris runs in so Kaya can feat and teleport in to kill Issyria, but first Issyria admonitions away from Laris, then he figures he can still go for a spell assassination except he cant teleport anywhere and not be effected by Banshee wailing.

So he opts for plan B which is  run  army away, adopt fetal position close eyes and wish for it all to go away. This was essentially forfeiture without forfeiting so I play long score scenario points and assassinate on the winning turn.

Thus Kaya taps her ruby red shoes and whispers there's no place like home.

5 Control points for Retribution

Assassination

and a bad reputation.

Meanwhile on another table...

I'm sorry Gator player you are undeserving of my ire.

Game 3 Issyria vs Mortenebra

Feat on first turn, try to win.

Twas a tier list.
Morty
Crab jack with stealth
more jacks
small jack
more small burrowing jacks
support to make jacks work better

I found it hard to hide my excitement when my opponent told me he had a extra 2" deployment from tier. To be honest my strategy for this game went as far as my last.

Feat on first turn, try to win.

So he did spend his first turn advancing into my threat ranges.

The Banshee couldnt bring up a decent threat and he didnt leave Morty close enough to get double charged by Assassins.

Still Issy advances, Admonitions herself Invoiable Resolves the Banshee and feats.

I kill the small jack, the crab jack and another and cripple the other 2.

He attempts an assassination run and Issyria Admonitions out of harm.

My army mops up the survivors while I try to score more points.

Narn fluffs about and fails to kill things, good work Narn.

Cryx kill the scenario objective for a point.

Retribution continue to fluff about and not kill Mortenebra scoring more scenario points.

Morty tries a last ditch assassination on Issyria and she Arcane Vortexes it and that's that.

Retribution Win

5 control points

loss of all pretence of being a "nice guy"

 

Boy am I glad Warmachine doesn't have sportsmanship. I love those guys but I hate myself.

I mean really, not to diminish the game at all but it was pretty straight forward. After I neutralized the jacks he had a considerable dis advantage for delivering an assassination or clearing out my infantry.

Venue was great, TO was great, everything was great. Not just because I won but it was very hassle free and I hope there can be more and larger tournaments soon in the same place.

I did feel pretty awful for wiping 2 armies off the table in a turn each with Issyria but its what she does. No its what she needs to do, because if she doesn't well its all wet paper bag downhill from there.

One thing about tough tho, whenever you are talking about tough or recounting any one of those ludicrous tough stories the general rule is to take the actual number exaggerate it by at least twice and add a couple.

 2 Japanese, a Colombian a Spaniard an American and a Kiwi walk into a bar... The bartender pours 2 sake a sangria a tequila a bourbon and gives the Kiwi prune juice. 

The Kiwi asks why he got prune juice

The bartender says "I heard you were having a problem with passing tough rolls"

Sorry.

Fukuyama Warmachine Steamroller.

Did not happen for me.

I was prepping for this tournament for months ahead of time. I am quite disappointed that I didn't attend.  3 days before the event I canceled my place to let someone else get in.

Why? 

Well it was a culmination of events and work related stresses. I have not willfully abandoned a tournament since Flames of War back in 2010. 

First off there was some miss communication about time at home between me and my partner. I assumed or had previously thought until it was changed (not sure what happened first)

Thinking it was a one day 3 round steam roller I should be finsihed up by 5pm which gives me plenty of time for the 40 minute train ride back to the overnight bus to take me home.

Actually it was 5 rounds which means even with assassination all over my game play I would still miss the last round.

This wouldnt have been a problem if I had communicated to my partner that I wanted to take the bullet train home and not an overnight bus. I really cant sleep while traveling.

So there was scheduling issues, best of cases I would get in for 4 games and then have to bail. Potentially big dick move.

Secondly a Typhoon was rolling in. Typhoon number 19 was set to hit right on the day that I would be playing, not a great concern for me but I was worried about my partner again. She would spend most of the day cooped up inside either surrounded by geeks or a crammed Japanese hotel room. I felt bad about this situation.

Also my employers voiced concern about traveling during the Typhoon and expressed a desire for me not to go with the risk of the Typhoon. I'm doing a good job where I am and I'm sure the inconvenience of having to get someone to fill my position because I was injured or otherwise left unable to do my job, would greatly inconvenience my employers.

Lastly I thought I would be conveniently close enough to Hiroshima to do some sight seeing before playing some games. It was actually a 2 hour train ride between cities and playing in Fukuyama would mean I miss out on Hiroshima completely, or risk being exhausted.

Well lets be frank, I give no fucks about the typhoon. If it was just me I would bullet train down and back and Typhoon, Earthquake, Ebola or Volcano be damned there is Warmachine to be won.

The thing is I didnt want to duck out of my last game especially if I was winning and I didnt want to miss out on Hiroshima.

4 Days before the event I canceled my entry and told the girlfriend to can the tickets. But she couldn't get a re fund. So we figured what the heck lets try to dodge the typhoon, just go down take the train to Hiroshima and come back without the stress and tiredness of fitting in 4 games of warmachine in between.

My sincerest apologies 

To the event coordinators and participants, I really hope my spot was filled and I am sorry I missed it. I am however not sorry that I spent 2 days in beautiful Hiroshima and saw some more of this amazing country.

I wanted to do 3 things in Japan.

1. Find a well payed comfortable job that makes use of my education.
2. Experience a different culture and explore foreign lands.
3. Meet more wargamers and play Warmachine with them.

Considering...

I had to decline 3 friends invitations to play Warmachine, for the sake of going to the tournament which I canceled, despite my busy work schedule. I got to spend time with the one I love discovering parts of the world it has been my life long dream to see. I think I'll call this a great success.

Ides 2014 batrep and stuff.

How much I sucked.

So I came 21st out of 40 players. Not to discredit any one of the 19 players below me but 21st is pretty terrible and I'm totally unhappy with my performance.

The tournament was great, the tables were great, the players were great. My dice were pretty good and everything was pretty great. I had some real bad turns tactics wise and my Issyria list was pretty awful.

The Meta

I think this is the first time I really truly felt how much my garage gaming meta effected the construction of my lists and deeply effected my games. Prior to Ides I had been playing loads against Skorne and a little Legion. I built both of my lists to give me good game against hordes and I specifically skewed Issyria against the high armor high model count kind of Skorne, Gators, Trolls lists.

I kept telling myself that she was my anti Cryx drop. (Fun fact#1 I didn't play against any Cryx!) As it was I went 2/2 with Ossyan and 1/2 with Issyria. Thats 3 wins 4 losses folks. Yes I suck. (Fun fact#2 Issyria was not even my Trolls or Gators drop as the Ossyan list performed better)

There was however a majority War Machine over Hordes and I managed to play bad enough that I didnt play against any Cryx yet not play bad enough to play against one of the 3 Skorne lists.

Vengace (Yes Vengace not vengance.)

There were a couple of ironies and a  few sad facts.

My practice game VS eHaley Stormwall was a horrifying rape as I did my best to save face. My real game VS a eHaley stormwall list was lolertastic.

I lost my game to my awesome arch rival nemesis Chris F (3rd Ret player who is a Chris) While our personal score is currently 2/3 in my favor I believe he won mostly on the fact that his Issyria list was great while mine was a steaming pile of baboon semen. Sadly Chris F didn't take best rest, some other guy did and I came last of all the Ret players. /uninstall.
Still I call vendetta and I seriously need to make it out of Auckland (not Hamilton) for a tourney this year. (Fun fact#3 Issyria with Hyperion is as sweet as you think it is)

My 2 best games were against 2 of my worst match ups (excluding gators) The a fore mentioned Cygnar game, where I held out for 2 turns not assassinating Haley who was kiting my army around. I needed to score max CP. And against a Grissell list that was so full of grind I had no fingernails at the end of the game. (2 lights, loads of tuffalo, warders, champs whatever) Again for 3 turns I chased Grissell around the table while scoring max CP. After grinding through 90% of her army.

The Haley game was kind of farcical, he had blazers zooming up my flank threatening Ossyan, who somehow gave no fucks about them. Haley feated catching most of my army, I mostly just stood around and shot at whatever I could. My Halberds ran the flank taking out 2/3 of Black 13th and killing his Journeyman. One also charged a squire late game and rolled 1,1,1 on damage with mini feat up. Good work Halberdier. Anyway at the end of Haleys feat Ossyan had counter feated. Cygnar turn he did nothing as all of his guns were useless and I somehow brought the Stormwall down with Hypnos, Skarath and a 1/4 unit of charging non feated Halberdiers. That's right, void lock is amazing.

Both of these wins were Ossyan, the list performed admirably and I'm super stoked about it. The first loss with Ossyan was against a Kallus list with 2 Ravagores. I mostly put this down to splitting my fire on feat turn between each of his beasts leaving each of them on 2 or 3 hit points. It was pretty terrible play on my behalf and I suffered for it. Still I came out with 1cp and did a sweet move where Ossyan died to a Shredder free strike just so I could deny him scoring further points that game.

The one Issyria win was an assassination where I really didn't want to play the game. My opponent was new to Ret and was throwing down an eVyros Griffon spam list. As disgusted as I am about eVyros Griffon spam there were 2 things that made me want to end this game fast.
1: He gave me a pretty sweet assassination run.
2: He was seriously nitpicking every single 1/4inch move I was making.
Now I know we can all get a bit sleepy some times when it comes to accuracy but I felt like someone told him I was a horrible cheat and he was trying to keep tabs on me. (I may have horribly cheated some things in some of those games I'm sure shouldn't have happened.)
Anyway he sat Vyros on the edge of a hill with 0 focus. So Sylys gave her butt love and she floated up feated and cast a double psuedo boosted blinding light at Vman needing like an 8 to hit (it was also boosted) I rolled 3,2,2,1,1. SO that didn't work. SO I cast it again boosted with feat boost also and got him the second time.
Then the artificer came up and Magno blasted a Griffon that he was near, pulling him off the hill. Vyros was now 13/18. The Destor thanes shot him down with 7 shots as one was shield guarded.

Lessons learned

I had a pretty sweet idea for the Issyria list which I immediately dropped for retarded reasons. I really need to go with what I know is good rather than build around 30 games v Skorne.
Ossyan is a boss, Dahlia Hallyr and Skarath are fundamental to Rets attrition capabilities.
Issyria is as average as I suspected she is. She will sadly only have any real game in lists with models that can take a hit or 3 which limits her effective list builds.

The bad stuff

I had a game against Durgen and the Dwarf colossal. There were 3 giant pieces of immobile impassable terrain which basically funneled the entire game into an 8" corridor down the middle of the table. Not so bad except this corridor also had a 5" shallow pond right in the middle of my side. With the Giga pooper scooper throwing rough terrain and aoe knock downs at my sentinel brick I barely advanced past 20". I did ok killing his Nyss and Gun Mages but one Thane died to primed Nyss as he charged one, impacted one and shot another.
He ended up with Aiyanna and Holt in a zone that I killed the objective for. I tried to clear them out with Discordia, was using a Black Oiled Sentinel as my target so Holt couldnt quick draw me, then completely forgot to declare my sentinel as the target and got quick drawed anyway.
Painful game, nice guy but I'm pretty sure at the end of it he must have been wondering how I could suck so bad.

I had to play against my most feared and respected Gator opponent in the last round. This was the round which would decide which one of us had a higher placing on the tables. There was the "Pieces of shit" half (I quoted) and the "not so bad" top half. If I won the game it would have put me in 11th place knocking him to 12th. But it was Rask v Ossyan and he was doing it for a Mug (Fun fact#4 His 4th mug I have never won a mug, I have only got a pity mug someone gave me because they had no more room for mugs) (Fun fact#5 Pity mugs are 100% worse than a winning mug) (Fun fact#6 all of the tournaments I go to where I place high, win or get best faction or assassin or something, there are no mugs) (Fun fact#7 if real life were Team Fortress, mugs would be hats.)

The good stuff

Even though I had to play against JS's gators and THE BLACK JEW FISH in the last round, it was a pretty darn close game, best game I had against Old Gregg and he got to win a Mug and therefore is morally obliged not to rage quiet warmachine for another year.

I got to play against a load of out of towners and while they all probably thought I was a bit of a drop kick douche try hard, I really enjoyed the games and thought they were all super swell guys.

I got to see my most feared and respected Gator opponent fail a greated than 95% chance roll and get smashed by pink Rahn. (Go pink Rahn) (Fun fact#8 The complacency of that Rahn player like it was such a forgone conclusion that he would win was like smearing batter over and deep frying Rasks fish dick before being served with a side of creme de humiliation tartare.)

I dodged thunder dome.

Who won you say?

Some monster playing 3Butcher went 7-0 with 28 out of 35 cps for the event. Thats pretty batshit insane. Was everyone so worried about the Cryx match up they forgot about the Axe match up?

Butcher needs no army!

 Thank fuck there are no Blink Daggers in Khador.

This is one of the 3Butcher games vs Gators that was recorded in thunder dome. Where the lady on the cat is the players hope and the spider is his dark dark soul. See how they all die to the whirling Axe of the Butcher.

BEERMACHINE Aug31 2013

 Thats right beer bellied nerds its time again for our favourite type of nerdly past times...

This seemingly bi-annual event will hopefully take off without a hitch, come along get drunk roll dice and puke on my cat. Smoke all manner of inhalable substances on the roof of the local real estate agent and generally be a social menace and a kick ass middle aged child with a god complex!

It will be great to see you!

First in are usually the Garage crew but because its all word of mouth around those parts if your keen and actually read my blog let me know or pop a message on here. I will keep a list of expected attendees

1: JS Imbeau
2: Hayden Cooper
3: Paul Hadskis-gorden
4: Luke Brimblecombe
5: John Glenn
6: Damon Holmes
7: Alan Guild
8: Tim Hailes
9: Andrew Fredrikson
10: Glen White

Retribution takes Wolf Cry: My take on the "non standard meta" win.

This was a bit late coming to the blog but I got lost in other activities, posted up a quick report on the PP forums and forgot about it.

Long story short, I won. Yay!

Here is my Forum report.

Hello chaps, had a one day event called Wolf Cry in my little corner of the world in New Zealand.
50 point 4 round format where you choose between 1 and 4 lists but you had to play at least each one once.

I took first place and top Control Points over the following games.

My lists were

Adeptis Rahn Shyeel
Aspis
Phoenix x2
House Shyeel Battle Mages (Leader and 5 Grunts)
Houseguard Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Houseguard Halberdiers Officer & Standard
Soulless Escort
Arcanist x2
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution
House Shyeel Artificer
House Shyeel Magister
Mage Hunter Assassin x2
Narn

Ravyn, Eternal Light
Manticore x2
Arcantrik Force Generator
Dawnguard Invictors (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Dawnguard Invictor Officer & Standard2
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt
Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Mage Hunter Commander
Arcanist
Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

Dawnlord Vyros
Banshee
Hyperion
Phoenix
Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker
Houseguard Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts)
Houseguard Halberdiers Officer & Standard
Soulless Escort
Arcanist
Arcanist
House Shyeel Magister
Lanyssa Ryssyll, Nyss Sorceress

First game vs Vindictus, Menoth vs pVyros, Supply and Demand.
I'm not sure if this was a tier list but it was pretty scary. He had the battle engine, 2 units of Bastions with the UA on each one, Zealots with the Monolith and a min unit of cleansers, choir and mechanics and 2 light flamethrower jacks.

It was pretty scary looking at that list, he only had the one so left the ball in my court. Thankfully I decided to run with three lists, I almost did not take pVyros.

I chose pVyros to play against him and took first turn. Hype got a nice crit consume off on the Zealots while they had mini feat up and removed the monolith, I positioned around to cut down the charge from his Bastions with Halberdiers on my left flank, on my right I threw the Banshee out so the other unit of Bastions couldn't charge it or my Pheonix who was also on that flank.

The Banshee took a few Bastions while the Pheonix took the rest, they couldn't charge so damage was minimal. Cleansers started work on clearing out my Halberdiers but only got about 3 of them, he then feated. The Bastions worked on a few more of the Halberdiers reducing them to about half. The Zealots attacked Hype and barely scratch him with Invoiable resolve up.

Pvyros feated dropped 1 focus on Hype and one on the Pheonix and moved to the edge of the scenario zone. Hype made a power attack sweep on 5 Zealots and 2 Bastions but only connected with 2 of the zealots. With some bought attacks and some help from the remaining Halberdiers I fueled up the Pheonix and the Banshee. The Banshee cleared out the opposing objective and put some damage on the Bastions around it and the Pheonix cleared out a few more. I ended my turn on 1 points.
The following turn he wrecked Hype with the other unit of Bastions + UA and threw his entire army at it. I was pretty much left with Vyros and the 2 Jacks who were getting field repairs all the way through this. The Battle Engine was doing a good job of finishing up my Halbs.

So Vyros charged the Bastion UA and killed it, and the 2 jacks cleared out the zone for Vyros to dominate. He rocked into the Hypes wreck, camped focus and girded his loins. He responded by Killing the Banshee dropping a load of flame attacks on Vyros, some of which killed off his own Bastions. Obviously he re contested the zone. In order to score again I needed to kill a few things + finish off the unit of Bastions (2 guys) my Pheonix was 3 inches away from Vindictus and Vyros was less than 7".

So Lanyssa Charged one Bastion finishing it off and the Pheonix moved in to engage Vindictus and killed the other bastion. Rather than clearing the zone with Vyros I charged and killed Vindictus with 2 attacks.

Second game Trolls with eGrimm vs Rahn, Amunition Run.
This guy had 2 lists but it was his second game so he was free with his choice.
I knew this player, he was good. There is not much to say here, I took second turn? Basically he jammed me with the fast running mini feat guys, and lobbed some aoes at me. He positioned Grimm up behind a wall and put his Bomber in front of it. Early on he had some good scatters and luck killing off some support.

Anyway I start my 3rd turn and see the opportunity to slam his Bomber over Grimm. I feat and do this, clearing out some room with my Halbs to get my Mittens in range. He is on 2 transfers but from the Collateral damage + the full unit of Batte Mages I get the kill, tho he toughed twice first. I also moved my Pheonix around to kill the opposing objective and score a point.

Third game I play pHexeris vs pVyros, Into the Breach.
He had 3 lists but didnt want to be locked into the last match up so went with Hex.
I was expecting this match up, and I was expecting who I would play if I won this game. So I took pVyros fully knowing I was locking myself in on Ravyn for the last game.

Happy with the choice however. He had the Mammoth, 2 of the lizard dog things, 2 guys who did puppet master, unit of Gators with the UA and a unit of Nihilators. Also had a Cyclops with a gun. His turns were spent running at me while I walked forward and shot things. Halbs took a charge from his Gators and half the Nihilators and kept kicking back. I strangle held one the light Warbeasts that he was using as arc nodes early on and in the second turn killed it with a Pheonix combustion while the Banshee killed the other and cleared the zone letting me control it for a point. I planned to trade the Banshee and let Hyperion kill the Mammoth.

There was a hairy moment when an AoE drifted over the Banshee and banged up Lanyssa pretty bad but she pulled through...
His Gators were tied up with my Halbs and a couple of his remaining Nihilators put some damage on the Pheonix. He charged the Mammoth at the Pheonix and one shot it, and proceeded to have the reach and fury to kill the Banshee also. He only toed the zone with the Mammoth however so, my next turn I put three on Hype, concentrated powered him and hit the Mammoth with hunters mark. Hype charged it and killed it and Vyros camped and ran into the zone to dominate. He responded by trying to shoot Vyros with his Cyclops which did 3 damage, then Charged hype with Hexeris and went for a spell assassination on Vyros which did nothing. I cleared the solo soul catching spell castery thingee he had in the zone with Lanyssa charging it, Hype power attack head butted Hexeris into the dirt with Arcanist focus and Vyros finished him off. I won on full points.

Game 4 was Mercenaries Bart vs Ravyn, Fire Control.
He was Bart, Galleon, Wrong Eye, Snap Jaw, Bull Snapper, Sylys, Aiyanna and Holt, eEyriss, Thror, a light jack another light jack with Shield Guard, Gorman, Dougal Mcnail.
Basically it was Team Galleon.

The scenario was not in his favor, and I was more than happy to be locked into my Ravyn list. He was super extra scared of the snipe feat go assassination run, almost to the point where he would have kill boxed himself. However he was also show boating a little, I figured he wanted to bait it out of me early, considering Bart was 15/16 I'd say there was a good chance of failure.

However he did bait it out. In his second turn he killed 2 Strike Force with AOE's and walked back as close to his table edge while being able to walk back into the kill box next turn. I feated and moved in with the Strike Force. 5 were in range, 4 hit one was shield guarded but I rolled above average and put 8 damage on him. The following turn he killed all but one of the strike force, killed one of my Manticores, killed pEyriss, moved Galleon up and put Bart behind him, then blocked his left flank LOS with the Shield Guard Jack.

I switched snipe on to the Invictors. The Force Generator momentum cannoned his Light Jack down and away freeing up the LOS on that flank and dropping his Shield Guard. The Invictors went in with mini feat for 18" combines, of the unit 8 were in range and the others couldn't draw LOS or were out of range. 3 combines were enough however ( re roll misses are amazing) and I took him down. Failing the AFG slam shot I was ready to score 3 points on scenario potentially

I have placed decently in tournaments before and took out a small 6 man one not long ago, but this is my first first place and many of them were some of the best players in the Meta. Won a Cryx Battle Box tho, any buyers?

Also pVyros, totally legit.

TLDR
The lists represented in this tournament were considered by some to not be standard for the local Meta. I don't quite agree, Auckland sees a strong Hordes following and the lack of Khador and Menoth are quite normal.
While I did crutch my third caster with being Ravyn I hardly ever play her before, but I knew she was a strong match up against some of those stronger tournament lists so thats why I put her in. The other two were to give me scenario and assassination options.
I specifically locked myself in for Ravyn expecting who I would be playing off against, and am happy about that strategy. I think in 3 lists formats retribution really starts to get some good flexibility and work around their bad match ups. Ret does get bad match ups I agree, but Ret has the tools to fight them if they can take them. The problem is fitting all of those tools into 2 lists. 3 lists gave me a lot more breathing space.

Beermachine 2013

 With a hiss a roar and a flipping of the bird Beermachine had begun. Luke paced anxiously back and forth while Andrew made his toast for breakfast and washed it down with the first beer of the day. Tim whined about how crap the mountain king was and Alan sat around thinking about anything other than warmachine because his list played itself, he really was just there to move it around and roll dice. As I prepared my lists Glenn showed up late and filled out the 8th place so I could stand around and drink Gin and Tonic all day.

There were 8 competitors and 6 factions represented:

Circle championed by Andrew and Luke
Skorne/Gators annexed/disowned by JS
Trolls trawled by Tim
Mercs hired by Glenn
Cygnar heralded by Josh and Damon
and Cryx who enslaved Alan to physically move them across the table.

 

I believe unintentionally JS may have given Luke an awkward game. I'm not sure why I just picked up that vibe. On the far table the Winner of the tournament is about to auto pilot over Andrews circle list. Ouch.

Product placement.

 I was considering 4 rounds but 3 was enough, especially since JS appeared about to snap after the second. The photo of the game above was the infamous one where he claimed to roll, or roll equivalent to 3 trip ones in a row.
Sometimes dice just screw you, sometimes they bend you over penetrate you in all manner of unpleasant ways and then jizz in your eye.

 Gentlemanly gentlemen go about a literal blue on blue match. Swans vs Cygnets maybe? To be honest I don't remember who won but its a whole lot of Cygnar and looks about as boring as goose poop to me.

Glenn's face says it all really.

Throughout the games I also kept a tally of what I called Bitch Points. These were awarded to players who inordinately complained about their list, dice rolls or general bad luck.  I realised as a TO its a giant douche of a move to do and may be seen as an effort to contain uncontrollable raging and force people to have more amicable games. However I merely did it because I'm a giant douche.

In the end once people learn about it I think they did control their rage, and for some it was probably not a good idea. I am now sure of that many of us play games, just so we can rage about things. Its an important psychological benefit to be able to purge negative pent up energy. Even if all the negative energy you have is about how crap the Mountain King is or how bad the Dice raped you the act of raging about it restores balance, catharsis. I miss not doing Judo because of the violent outlet it gave me and for many people their sports and hobbies are probably the same, I was much calmer when I got to strangle people and throw them around the room. It appears we males all need our moments of controlled and regulated violence or we may just pop.

 So anyway who won

Alan first. Awarded with the Peanut of first place

Josh second. Awarded with the Peanut of second place

No third place cause I'm useless

Peanut of Assassination awarded to Glenn (fastest assassination)

Peanut of the Destroyer awarded to Josh (most kill points)

Peanut of the Tactician awarded to Luke (most scenario points)

Groin Guard of the Defeated (box) awarded to JS for constantly getting kicked in the nuts.

Most Bitch Points was pretty close. I should say you could only make 5 points per game. 3 players maxed points on their first game and then only scored 1 or 2 more points in the subsequent ones. A part of the scoring also went into if you bitched about something, and then went on to win with it. For this fact
Awarded to Tim. His whining over the Mountain King ended up edging out Damon's particular rage over bad dice just before he beat JS who had worse dice. I think his Mountain King did rather well and with more sound tactical application (using him and learning him more and not given the forums any credit) it will do him well.

Overall it was a blaring success, many hangovers were had by all and the pizza that Andrew shouted us did not cause one bout of diarrhea, well done. Everyone had fun apart from JS who will either never play again or murder the neighbors in his sleep. Sorry JS, next Beermachine acquiring Bitch Points will be encouraged not discouraged, and you'll be able to rage as much as you like.

Post Ides Syndrome: The Dissolusioned Underpowered Faction Disorder.

So as the blog title mentions, procrastination is a big part of my wargaming, I need somewhere to do it now that I'm not studying.


Ides was a fantastic tournament in a good location with excellent competition and great people. It was a resounding success, although I didnt win. However there are 2 main gripes. The first was playing against the same Retribution opponent twice. I know some other players had it worse off with their draws but if I'm going to complain about anything that's it.
The only other thing was I found many of the scenarios difficult to score from. Essentially because they required the destruction of an objective before the zones were free uncontested, or what was many times the case, the enemy caster basically just sat in front of my army and forced me to kill him or I would be in a bad position the following turns, because my casters were not the up front kind.

This resulted in one of the two following scenarios.

1: I'm Retribution so killing a caster isn't an issue. I remove whatever is in the way or go around it depending on my caster and secure the kill, failing this make sure his counter turn will not hurt by removing as much vital pieces as I need to and facilitating my armies ability to deliver whats needed where its needed.

or

2: I'm Retribution so killing a caster isn't an issue. I remove whatever is in the way or go around it depending on my caster and secure the kill, failing this make sure his counter turn will not hurt by removing as much vital pieces as I need to and facilitating my armies ability to deliver whats needed where its needed. BUT my dice rolls fail, and / or I forget a key in game effect resulting in me loosing.

Basically I was up 3 wins but on 0 control points. In a fit of panic over the low CP's I tried to take some on the following game. What I learnt was I should have just assassinated when I saw the opportunity. I waited a turn and missed my chance. I was playing against Menoth and I popped Ossyans feat a turn late, I hit Fiora with a Chronophage and 2 arcantrick bolts and followed up with 3 stormfall archers. I left her on one box. Forgetting that she was under the effect of Chronophage she ran behind a wall blocking my armies line of sight to her. herpderp

The other game was against 3lich. We were grinding each other out to similar effect. I feated first, he countered by moving up and feating. With a bit of scalpel shooting and Phantom Hunter I lined up an assassination on Gaspy. I had him on fire, corroded and with 6 boxes after Kaelyssa spanked him with an Arcane Secreted Arcantrick Bolt. However I now derped, with 3 focus left I figured the better option was to step in, start stripping focus and boosting damage rolls, which it would have. If he didnt have his feat up. I would have been much safer firing one more Arcantrick Bolt at him and sitting well well out of range. As it was I didn't put any damage on him and he healed 4 more points, making the effects of the fire and corrosion negligible. He almost screwd up his own counter assassination run but managed to do at least one activation right (his last one) and killed Kae to the box. It was looking reasonably a safe win for me until I walked too close and gave it away, I'll chalk it up to a lack of concentration.

So I came out 5 wins 2 losses. I dont need to recount the wins, it was in most cases MHSF with Phantom Huntered Arcantrick bolts, or Hyperion to face. I did collect one CP but it was after the last game on the first day and we both forgot to record it, so it didnt go down on my record. No big deal my overal placing of 9th out of 36/38 would have been the same anyway, incidentally I was the highest ranked Ret player and I have a suspicion I might have been close to fastest assassination, but neither of these factors were rewarded. Noted I did "smash" Josh and he was above me on the table at the end.

Lessons? Just kill the motherfuckers, screw the scenario points only take them if its going to win you the game. Your better off 7/0 than 6/1 with 50cp's. But I suppose much of this depends on how the strength of schedule is worked out.

I was geared up for Equinox but it was canceled, and now I am going to Lukes thing in my own house. Not so sweet but... well its something still.

I think I did as well as I expected, I knew the top of the field was going to be a rough group, and actually I didnt get to play against any of them in the tournament, although most of my lists were designed around them in mind. The points worked out something like 5th place was drawn with 3 guys, just barely.

The most important thing about this tournament was that I got my regular Gators opponent to admit that despite his brazen hatred for my Faction Retribution of Scyrah is "ok" Having recieved the OK I now feel justified in my selection of them and that I no longer need to champion them as a faction, and as a result have considered taking on Skorne.

Considering his tournament was pretty bad and he got out played and out listed in a few games he was all but ready to delete his blog and melt down his minis, but the gift of the Mug of Mediocrity "he won a cup for bitching at the TO and having a funny blog) deterred him and now he is just wistfully dreaming of playing a faction that is not sub to "ok"

We players of underpowered factions are hanging on to the new books releases to justify our actions in choosing armies that reside below the Brimblecomb Line of Approval. Its a nasty cycle but its a fact that human beings are such stubborn creatures that we tend to justify bad decisions of our own rather than admit that we made a mistake. Thankfully my faction now has the "OK" and I don't have to admit to such folly.

What the future holds? Nicon perhaps, now that the Big Ides is over there is a bit of a void to fill. Maybe I'll go find a new job or something. Or start that Skorne army.