Seven years ago, I wrote about my first steamroller tournament. Yesterday, I played in my second. The tournament took place at The Portal in Manchester, and was set to be a four round tournament, although we only played three rounds.
I made two lists, but only brought the models for one, planning to play Sparkhammer every time.
Spankhammer
Cygnar - Storm Legion
Grand Melee - 100 pts
PC CARD
Mechanik Adept Sparkhammer
SPELL - Arcane Shield
SPELL - Deflection
7 Courser 1
1 HEAD - Shield Guard
4 RIGHT ARM - Heavy Stormthrower
2 LEFT ARM - Voltaic Punching Spike
7 Courser 2
1 HEAD - Shield Guard
4 RIGHT ARM - Heavy Stormthrower
2 LEFT ARM - Voltaic Punching Spike
17 The General
HEAD - The General
LEFT ARM - Polarity Fist
RIGHT ARM - Quicksilver Mk III
5 Eiryss, Shadow of Retribution
3 Specialist Tyson Vas
7 Zephyr 1
7 Zephyr 2
5 Arcane Mechaniks
5 Storm Callers 1
5 Storm Callers 2
5 Storm Callers 3
10 Storm Lance Legionnaires 1
10 Storm Lance Legionnaires 2
7 Stormguard Legionnaires
PC COMMAND CARD
Break Through
Careful Reconnaissance
Defenses
Infiltration
Old Faithful
After the tournament, I'd only have changed one thing about the list: The command cards. I'd have dropped Break Through and the Defenses, and picked up the reposition and blessing cards.
My first game was against Pete, whom I'd played a few times before. I've never won a game against him - he's very good. But that was okay, as I hadn't planned to win at this tournament.
Pete was playing Brinebloods, led by Shadowtongue. He systematically dissected my army, and we played until I was down to deathclock, and his time was relatively low as well. At the end, he was up by two points and had destroyed more than twice what I had in models. I clocked, but I played well, so that made me happy.
My second game was against Mark, with whom I've been good friends for at least 30 years. Mark was running Khador Winter Korps, led by Savaryn. He went first, and at the top of two he feated. His blessed shots which ignored concealment and cover destroyed my army.
After that, I rolled snake eyes on a few important attacks and missed a very important slam. From there, it was downhill for me until he killed Sparkhammer.
My third game was against Dan, who was running a legacy gator army led by Jaga Jaga. It ended up fantastic because it was so close. I sent three stormlances and a zephyr up each flank. My right flank got wrecked when a spitter corroded everything, then gatormen killed the rest. But at the same time, the stormlances on my left flank had arcane shield. After they charged the sacral vault, they were ARM 23, which gave those gatormen a hard time. I nickeled and dimed the sacral vault to death, and the stormcallers blasted a the rest of the gators on that side to death on Sparkhammer's feat turn. So at the same time my right flank was collapsing, his left flank was collapsing, leading to a weird spiral.
This scenario was Wolves at our Heels, so the 40mm objectives were moving forward. Critically, on one turn when I had only a single stormlance remaining on my collapsed flank, I took advantage of that stormlance's unstoppable rule and moved him up and out of melee to contest the 40mm objective, which allowed mine to move further, meaning that I'd gain three points on turn 4.
My lances cleared out the rest of the models at the top, and the zephyr got a charge on Jaga Jaga, forcing a few transfers, but doing no serious damage. Just after that, two gatormen and the wrassler made it over to Sparkhammer. But critically, I'd just hit that wrassler three times with Tyson Vas's electrocutioner attack, making him stationary, and I'd put Arcane Shield on Sparkhammer, bringing his armor up to 20. By the time the two gatormen and the wrassler were done with Sparkhammer, he had three boxes left. If the wrassler hadn't had to shake that stationary effect, he'd have had another attack and I'd likely have lost. As it stood, we both had less than 5 minutes left on clock, and I scored the three points one turn four, bringing the score to 15-9, and I actually won a game. Barely.
The steamroller was a blast - I'd expected to enjoy it, but I had even more fun than I'd expected.
