I did find that during the tournament games, I got very shaky, couldn't do remedial math (ugh, what's 13 minus 7?!?), and made so many horrible decisions. I forgot to activate models, forgot to allocate focus, moved models into my charge lanes, forgot to feat, and lost at least one activation shooting at a stealth model. I didn't prioritize models, and basically had zero real plan much of the time. I played much of the game entirely without thought. This is not how I normally play warmachine. Deathclock stole my mind.
(my lists can be found here)
GAME ONE
My first round was played against a Legion of Everblight player who dropped The Twins. I got enough of a sense of his list to know that if you kill a twin, it comes back. For this reason, I decided not to drop Caine2. I played my Stryker1 list. His list was
Saeryn & Rhyas
Seraph
Zuriel
Typhon
Strider Deathstalker
Spell Martyr
Annyssa Ryvaal
Hellmouth
Blackfrost Shard
Blighted Nyss Swordsmen (max)
My opponent's Legion army was really nicely painted. It's a pity that the tournament terrain was so poor, or else these would be some really pretty photos.
This is a photo from round one. The light tan circles are rough terrain, but I kept thinking they were a hill. The hill is the brown terrain in my right zone. The center square is a building, and the blue is water. This tournament didn't use any rubble, burning earth, acid bath, or dense fog. I also had some trouble telling flags from objectives.
I had just run up here, screening with blurred sword knights, intending them to just run forward and die, expending enemy attacks and resources. It partially succeeded, as he put prey and two spells on them.
By round two, the hellmouth had dragged in a centurion, three sword knights had charged a tentacle (doing nothing to it) and because I'd forgotten to allocate focus, Stryker sat on a huge stack of focus and the jacks did largely nothing. If I had remembered to run Arlan up to the left flag earlier, I'd have had a chance to win this game on scenario.
By round three, I was scoring on the flag and on my friendly zone, and I was up 4-1 on scenario. I was considering how to have my lancer slam the model I think is a Seraph out of the zone, and shoot the strider deathstalker with my charger. Unfortunately, when that opportunity came up, I activated the charger, went to shoot, and found that the model had stealth. Crap. Maybe I should have asked him to put tokens on the stealth models, because I found myself asking him again more than once every turn which models had stealth. And when I finally went to slam his model out of the zone, my lancer was too far from Stryker to get power up. So that was a no-go. Better play could have led to two more scenario points and a victory.
Instead, he killed both centurions and the storm strider, and ran models to contest every scenario element I had. My chance at a scenario victory was gone, assassination was off the table, and I had six minutes left on my clock. My first tournament game had been played as well as I could reasonably expect, but at this point I had no path to victory. I conceded.
GAME TWO
My second game was against Cryx. Wary of Caine2's true sight, my opponent chose Asphyxious1 rather than Witch Coven. I took Caine, thinking that I could pull an assassination.
Iron Lich Asphyxious
The Withershadow Combine
Nightwretch
Nightwretch
Corruptor
Aiakos1
Stalker
Stalker
Pistol Wraith
Warwitch Sirens
Mechanithralls
Skarlock Commander
Brute Thrall
Brute Thrall
Carrion Thralls (max)
Soulhunters (max)
I won the die roll and after looking, found that both sides had terrain that would thwart Caine's assassination. One side had a trench, and the other a forest to hide behind. My opponent's advice after the game was that I should have denied him the trench. I'd been thinking that if he hid behind that forest, it would have been even worse, but apparently that would have placed him further away than he'd wanted. I chose to go first, but perhaps that was a poor choice.
Early on, I forgot to have Reinholdt reload Caine, forgot to have Jakes allocate focus to the avenger, and worst of all I placed key models way too close to the side of the map where they were vulnerable to ambushing mechanithralls. My gun mage captain adept did well in taking out the pistol wraith, but I should have had him towards the left side of the map, where I could have taken out the soulhunters, then run a ranger up and flared Gaspy in his trench, letting Caine shoot him up and hit on sixes.
Honestly, I probably should have rushed the assassination less and focused on attrition. All my shots could have done a number on all that light armor, so long as I'd kept Caine safe, which I didn't.
Soon after, the mechanithralls ambushed onto the map and got my gun mage captain adept and the remaining stormlances. This photo is from when Gaspy ran up his second nightwretch and spell assassinated Caine.
At this point, it wasn't clear whether there would be only one more round, or two more. Apparently, one guy dropped out, and it ended up there was only one more. I got a bye.
Instead of getting no more games, I opted to play the guy running the tournament. Since he said he might have to run off and help with this or that, we didn't play on the clock. I was honestly just happy to get another game in. Then he dropped two Prime Axioms on the table. Crap. I actually commented to a friend at this point, asking if I could concede before deployment. But a certain loss was better than no game, so I dropped Stryker1 on the table, given Caine's difficulty with cracking armor.
His list was the two Prime Axioms, the corollary, an assimilator, and about eighteen shield guard servitors. Just what Cygnar wants to see.
My first goal was figuring out how not to get my centurions dragged in and murdered. I put one behind the Storm Strider on the approach, and the other behind six blurred sword knights. Boy do I wish I'd had Rhupert to up their defense to 18.
My marshalled cyclone did a number on some servitors when it rolled five shots. I think my opponent was shocked to hear it had RAT10 when it aimed and got "STRIKE TRUE!". I'm becoming a bigger fan of that cyclone all the time. The cyclone repositioned back partially against the forest to protect Stryker, since the stupid lancer had run up and taken the best protected position.
The assimilator's ground pounder did a number on my sword knights, the cyclone got dragged in and beat up, and the right prime axiom shot out the remaining sword knights, then dragged in the right centurion. But it had used up so much focus shooting sword knights that it didn't have enough remaining to do much to the arcane shielded centurion.
I also ended the turn with two solos right next to my flag, and neither was B2B with it. I wasn't looking for a scenario win, but that was just stupid. Also stupid: I forgot to have Stryker feat.
On my next turn, I went for it. The lancer got pathfinder from Runewood and ran up to the edge of the forest, then Stryker arced earthquake through it onto a servitor who was shield guarding Iron Mother. The servitor was steady, but mom fell down. The trench brought her up to DEF9. Then, one boosted arcane bolt and two boosted Storm Strider shots brought her down to three boxes. Not quite enough.
On my opponent's turn, he crushed the cyclone, the centurion, and the lancer. Then he started in on his biggest threat: the storm strider. I should probably have dropped arcane shield on a centurion to give it to the storm strider. Never mind that - I should have actually remembered to feat!
I got lucky in that the strider was left with 2 or 3 boxes. The next round, Stryker himself ran through the forest and arced earthquake. This time, there was no nearby servitor to serve as a target, so it had to be direct. DEF19 in a trench meant that I needed to hit that boosted 13. The first roll missed, but the squire let me reroll, and my second roll was exactly 13. Mom is knocked down again.
The storm strider finished it up, and I actually won a game.
The goal I'd decided on before the tournament was to not clock out too much, and to win at least one game. Surprisingly, I succeeded in both.
