FSA tourney report

I got to play in an FSA tourney yesterday.  I went in expecting to lose, but that's okay, because I had only played a couple of games of 2nd ed FSA.  I just wanted to get some games in, which is the same expectation that I have for any games at GenCon. My list was dictated mainly by what models I had, and what I was most comfortable with. (Eg, I have a carrier, but haven't tried it yet, so I did not take it.)

I fielded:

Tyrant battleship, with +1" Mv, +2 PD, -1" turn limit
3 Hermes crsuiders, all with +1 shield
3 Artemis destroyers
4 Missionary frigates
4 Armsmen frigates

I faced Ba'Kash and two different Sorylian fleets. The Ba'kash player just rolled over me - his frigates outflanked me, and my torps just could not get to his carrier. (I played poorly, which is part of it, but I was trying to use my cruisers, battleship and destroyers to crack his heavy cruiser, and not having any luck.) I did bad, bad things to the first Sorylian; a combination of lucky dice rolls, and most of his force was either ambush or in reserve, so everything got to shoot at his battleship. I did not kill the BB when I had the chance, and it cost me a couple ships in the end. I also should have spent a battle log point to ensure that my reserves got onto the board on the final turn, instead of letting him have the free points. (Lesson learned).

The second Sorylian player tabled me, and I barely did enough to him to avoid hitting -10 on the battle log. I played passably well, and he said that my fleet wasn't bad - it just needs some tweaks (which I know). My lesson on that game was just how powerful nukes can be.

So, my quick lesson thoughts are:
Buying MARs for extra PD and shields were worth it. That extra shield or PD (or both) kept my ships alive much longer, often being the difference between a crit and just a point, or even taking no damage at all.

Next time, take nukes. They will force the other players to either spread out their fleet, or risk the extra damage. Plus, Terran nukes are cheap.

Remember that you can reroll beam weapons in range band 1. The Tyrant shot at something, and I had a bunch of 1s, commented on it, scooped, and went on. A couple minutes later, with my next squadron, I realized that I could have rerolled those. I might not have done any better, but I sure as hell would not have done any worse.

Terran destroyers are evil. Full stop + hidden killer + maneuverable is bad enough, but if I make the fore weapons into nukes, all I need is a clear firing lane.

The cruisers were kind of meh. I'll try them again, and spend the extra points for nuclear torpedoes.

Missionary frigates did not do much, and were barely useful in hunting down enemy ships with Difficult Target. I need to try shunting them in or bringing them on the flanks as reserve. Armsmen frigates were almost always more useful, and I used their torps to take out Difficult targets with a decent rate of success.

Tourney results

So, on Saturday, I played ina 50pt SR 2014 beta tourney.  My end record was 2-2,  but there should be a solid * after it, because there are a few caveats.  I put together 2 lists (2nd list optional, but you had to play it if you brought it) - one with Syntherion, one with Axis.  My selection is still pretty limited, so I was running Monitor, Cipher, Prime Axoim, some servitors, one of the light vectors, and a unit each of reductors and obstructors.  (Aurora and the angels are still in pieces, so I could not use them.)

My first match was against Retribution, and I lost it bad.  I made a fairly key tactical mistake (did not line up well, and you can't drag across walls), but the big limitation was my inability (at this time) to deal with some of the stealth targets.  It was a fun fight, with both of us bringing a colossal, but I got outplayed, and deserved to lose.

My second game was against a troll player, and for this one, I snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.  I was winning on CP, I was winning on units and models destroyed, and I got over-eager, and hung Syntherion out too far.  If I had been a little more cautious, I could have won this game.  I had plenty of time on the death clock, and, if I had been more cautious, I would have spent the next turn tearing apart the rest of his army.  Instead, boom.

My third game was against Menoth.  Right now, I do not have enough released for Convergence to deal with the choir very easily.  This changes in December, when I can give out magic weapons for my vectors, but for now, the choir really limits my tactical options.  Fortunately, my opponent made some choices, moved his Judicator too far forward, and out of the range of the choir.  I won, but mainly because he made some pretty bad mistakes.

I won my final game against a Cygnar payer, but I really can't count it either.  He had to leave early, so I won on a forfeit.  I really would have liked to play it through - it looked like it would be a fun game.

So, yeah - I made some bad mistakes, and had some decent attempts at playing well, so I am not entirely dissatisfied with how I played.  I definitely need more practice with Convergence, but the more I play them, the more fun I have with them.  Can't wait until more stuff for them it out - and, looking over the next few months, I won't have to.

Post mortem, round 3

Wrapping this up with the third, and final, loss of the day.

Round 3

Opponent: Aaron, playing Khador

Army: 2Vlad
Behemoth
Juggernaut
Spriggan
Doom Reavers
Kovnik Joe
max unit of Winterguard Infantry
5 Man O'War Shocktroopers

Reinforcements: Don't know, as they were not placed on the table.

My army: Blindwater

Bloody Barnabas
x2 Blackhide Wrastler
Bull Snapper
Swamp Horror
x3 max Gatormen Posse

Reinforcements: Wrong-Eye and Snapjaw

(Technically, I was a point down, as I was for my Thornfall.  I could have put in my Swamp Gobbers -  just didn't think of it at the time.)

Scenario: A flag too far

Yeah, we were going to kill each other on this one too.  Melee-centric armies, meeting toward the center?  This would be bloody.  I won the roll, and had him deploy first.  He set his up pretty close to the center, as did I.  First turn, he advanced, with the Doom Reavers running forward, and the Behemoth taking some ranging shots, which did nothing.

Bloody Barnabas Swamp Pits 3 times, then charges forward.  I run gators up, chanting for the +1 Def and Terror.  Wrastlers run up, Snapper runs up along the flank, and the swamp horror runs up as well.  The end of my first turn looks like this:

Anyone see the mistake here?  I sure didn't.  Not at the time. 

On Aaron's turn, the Behemoth advances, takes a couple pot shots, doing next to nothing.  Spriggan moves up, winterguard move up.  2Vlad moves up a bit, feats.  Doom Reavers charge, including Barnabas, who is caught with no fury on him for transfers.  Doh!  (Cue Mr. Rogers voice: "Can you say, 'That was dumb', boys and girls?  Sure, I knew you could.")

Doom Reavers tear huge gaping holes in my front line.  Barnabas survives, but with only 4 health remaining.  Several doom reavers fall to other doom reavers - occupational hazard, and a small price to pay for the number of gators that they killed.

It comes to my turn.  Board position is terrible.  I go ahead and place Wrong-Eye and Snapjaw, and activate them first.  That way, I got to use them.  Wrong-Eye advances, takes over a couple of winterguard, manages to kill one of them that way.  Snapjaw charges up, and eats a couple of the troopers.  No big deal, really.  Bull snapper charges over and eats one of the doom reavers, then goes torpid. One unit of gatormen activates, tries to eliminate the rest of the doom reavers, and does so.

It's time to go big, or go home.  Yep - gator tossing is where it is at.  Wrastler grabs the other, in an effort to 2-handed throw it toward 2Vlad.  I can still pull this off, but now I pretty much have to do an assassination.  I hit.  I fail the throw.  Yep, I can roll lower on 2d6 than 1d6 when I need to.  (Looking back, I may have tied.  If so, I could have thrown - the target need to beat the roll, not tie it.  More on that below!)  At any rate, a failed gator toss is not good.

I look for a few minutes.  I have more than 35 minutes on the clock still, and really, if I can't pull off the assassination, it's doubtful that I will be able to win.  The armor on the Khador jacks is too high for my poor pillow-fisted gators.

Ah-ha!  I see a possibility.  One of my gators is in the way, so I activate another posse, and charge it, killing it.  Huzzah?  The second wrastler activates, moves up, and throws Barnabas at 2Vlad, then casts Rise on Barnabas.  Risky, since Barnabas could have been hurt by the throw.  Fortunately, he isn't.

Barnabas feats, knocking 2Vlad down.  I charge in, and start doing some damage.  The bonus to Def from Might of Kings doesn't matter.  Unfortunately, I fail to kill 2Vlad, leaving him with 3 boxes.  He stands up, and kills Bloody Barnabas.

(Several models are out of place, because we had started to pick up before I took this pic.)

Lessons learned: Know the throwing rules better.  Really. 

Lesson #2 - Don't leave Barnabas exposed like that.  Losing some gators hurt, but having Barnabas take a hit like that was risky, since he could have been killed outright, and it also put me in a really tight spot. 

Great game, again, and a lot of fun.  Aaron really wanted to see me pull off the flying gator trick, and I wanted to see him assassinate Barnabas, since I left him wide open.  I think with a little more careful placement of his Doom Reavers, he could have managed it, too.

Post-mortem, Round 2

Continuing in the same vein. 

Round 2

Opponent: Chuck Ocenasek, playing Cygnar

Army: eHaley
Stormwall
Old Rowdy
Squire

Archduke Runewood
Black 13th
Precursor Knights
Stormblades

His army is a little off - I didn't take note of it, and I think there is a UA that I am missing, or something.

My army: Thornfall

Sturm & Drang
x2 Road Hogs
x3 War Hogs
Targ

4 Bone Grinders
6 Brigands
Slaughterhousers


We had to have two lists, but we did not have to play both.  We were also told that two rounds would have reinforcements.  Since this one did not, I chose my pigs.  (I wanted to try out the reinforcements in my other list, so I left it for then.)


Scenario: Restoration.


Since he had a Stormwall, he had to predeploy it.  I won the roll again, and had him place his whole army, before placing mine.  We did forget to start the clock for deployment, but time was not an issue at all in this game.


First round, he advances, and lays down covering fire.  I advance as well.  While we are both looking to score points, we have also both come to the conclusion that caster kill is how this one is likely to end.


Round two, he advances, shoots a lot of things, really hurts one of the war hogs.  I retaliate by charging the stormwall with two of them.  I don't tear it apart - I should have, but I did not double check my cards, and forgot to aggression dial one of them, and the extra damage would have really helped.  I think I popped feat, mainly to prevent the Stormwall and Old Rowdy from getting a load of focus and beating the tar out of my poor war hogs.

Next turn, the Black 13th come up and do a number on the brigands, though some survive.  Stormblades come up and unload on the road hogs, and I think the precursor knights ran up to base the road hogs and slow them down a bit.  eHaley pops feat.


Having your order of activation forced on you stinks.  And, having to chose between moving and attacking just rubs some salt in the wound.  Astonishingly, I manage to still do some damage this turn - Targ can give ancillary attack, and I manage to do some damage to the stormblades and the precursor knights.  Rowdy gets hurt, and (IIRC), I manage to cripple the hammer. 


His next turn hurts me, but the damage on Rowdy and on the Stormwall has been adding up, and I weather the storm.  On my turn, my remaining warhog scraps Old Rowdy.  And here is where I lose the game.

Put simply, I got greedy.  I really wanted to finish killing the Stormwall.  I should have waited a turn - I had the better position on the board, and it was nearly dead.  Old Rowdy was down.  The precursor knights were almost wiped from the board, and the Stormblades were gone.  The squire is no threat, and I can deal with Black 13th and eHaley over the next turn or two.

S&D, under the Drang aspect, charges up and starts laying the smackdown on the Stormwall.  It takes a couple of swings, but I drop it.  (Yay - another angle, from early next turn)

Unfortunately, this leave S&D out in the (relative) open, with no fury on him.  Between the Black 13th, the Journeyman, and eHaley, they manage to kill him.  Barely.

So - officially, this was a loss.  But, I claimed moral victory, for having dropped the Stormwall.  And, unfortunately, after the tourney was over, we found out that Chuck had accidentally been running the Stormwall incorrectly, and so was DQ'ed.  I'm still calling this a loss, however - I lost it fair and square, and really, hanging my warlock out there was a pretty stupid move.

So, what did I learn from this one?

First, collosals aren't as scary as they first seemed.  I have faced three now, and while they are tough, I won one of the games against them, lost one (though I took out half the collosal in the process), and could have won this one, if I had not gotten too greedy at the end. 

Second - getting greedy cost me the game.  I could see victory, and managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Again, my fault, not his. 

So, the second game was a lot of fun, and it turned out to be a great game, with lots of good natured trash talking, and some happy BSing once the game was done. 

Post-mortem, Round 1

So, I'm going to split up the tourney into three posts.  First, that way, I can try to do each battle on its own.  Second, it's a blatant attempt to pad my post count. Third, this way I can get something out, instead of sitting here, with 95% of an unfinished batrep, and having it stay that way for days.

So, Round 1, of the 50pt SR at Dragon's Refuge, in Peotone, IL.

Opponent: Ben Lang, playing Skorne

Army: eHexeris
Bronzeback
Gladiator
Cyclops Savage
Molik Karn
Aptimus Marketh

Extoller Soulward
6 Paingiver Beast Handlers
10 Praetorian Swordsmen, plus Officer & Std Bearer
10 Venator slingers

Reinforcements: Tyrant Rhadeim
x2 Venator Flayer
Feralgeist

My army: Thornfall

Sturm & Drang
x2 Road Hogs
x3 War Hogs
Targ

4 Bone Grinders
6 Brigands
Slaughterhousers

Reinforcements: Rorsch & Brine

Scenario: Outflank, Outfight, Outlast.

(NB - always take the opposing army and scenario with a grain of salt.  I forgot to write those down on Saturday, so it's only as good as my memory. )

Setup was fairly standard.  We both deployed most of our armies toward the middle, but more toward one table edge.  (MISTAKE!)  Turn 1 was fairly uneventful, as we both hurried toward the middle to start contesting control zones.

Turn 2 was where things started to go south.  We were closer to his reinforcement edge, and out popped the two flayers, which turned the brigands into swiss cheese.  Without fearless & tough, they would have all died.  As it was, they just became ineffective, which was not much better.  Molik runs up, and thanks to Black Spot (and him being Molik Karn), smacks around the slaughterhousers.  (This pic is before he does that.)

The swordsmen have run up and based a lot of things, but not attacked.  They're blocking charge lanes, mainly, I think.

On my turn, I try to clear some things up, and contest the zones.  Rorsch & Brine appear, and I manage to get a charge off on Molik, but fail to kill him.  The remaining slaughterhousers don't seal the deal either.  I start trying to move my stuff out of the way of the flayers, but at the end of the turn, it isn't much better.

I think I popped my feat at the end of turn 2.  S&Ds feat is basically a "screw you!" to Hordes armies - it reduces FURY to 1, warjacks can only get 1 focus, and no enemy channeling spells. 

IIRC, Ben used his third turn to eliminate Brine, some slaughterhousers, and consolidate his position.  My third turn was an attempt to kill as much as possible, because the game was over - I was pretty weakened, and almost all of my beasts were dead.  I looked for an assassination vector, and did not see it.  I think the end of my turn 3 looked about like this:

Long story made short - he tabled me.  I had nothing left at the end.  Wiped it clean (except for one beast), and then went for the caster kill. 

Lessons learned:
This is the most important part of the post-mortem.  If I don't learn from the mistakes, I will repeat them.  Avoiding stupid mistakes will help me be a better player.

Mistake #1 - pay attention to the reinforcements and where they will be popping up.  I had him set up first, and I could have put a lot of my stuff on my right.  It would have made his reinforcements a lot less effective - I would have been able to avoid the artillery, instead of running right up to it, and turning that flank into a turkey shoot.

Mistake #2 - Remember power attacks. I think a trample would have helped clear out the swordsmen, and made my life a lot easier.

Mistake #3 - Know your models!  I had just picked up the road hogs, and I wanted to use them.  Ditto for Rorsch & Brine.  I don't regret either choice, but I wasn't as familiar with them or their capabilities.  I did not realize until earlier today that a road hog has an effective threat of 20" with the spray.  Oops.  Should have charged something far off, and sprayed it. 

Mistake #3b - In addition to being careful with new models, make sure you are aware of the old ones.  I wasn't thinking, and chose the wrong personality of S&D at the beginning of the game.  Completely my fault.

Final thoughts - yes, I would love to blame my dice for this one.  I had some terrible damage rolls, and Ben had some truly phenomenal ones.  But the reality is that excuse will only carry to much water - I got outplayed here, pure and simple.  It was a great game, and I had a lot of fun, even though I lost.  I'm hoping that I learned something from it, however.

A quick post-mortem

Well, that went about as I expected.  I went 0-3 (though apparently that got changed to 1-2, which I dispute.  I lost that match fair and square, dangnabit!)

I'll do a longer recap later, but I lost R1 to skorne.  Yes, he had good dice, and yes, I had bad dice, but my initial set-up was poor, and I paid for it.  I'd like to blame it on the dice, but I got outplayed.

R2 was the one that got changed.  There was some confusion on the rules for colossals.  I lost, and I am going to keep it as a loss, because I did not know the rules on them well enough to correct the other player.  I wear the black, I should know the rules.  Besides, I claim moral victory - I killed the stormwall.

R3 - lost that one too.  I made a mistake, and while it did not kill me, it did force my hand to take a risky move.  I could have pulled it off, but I could not get out of the way of my own dice.  Average rolls should have actually given me the game.  Didn't, but should have.

I don't want anyone reading this to get the impression that I am bitter or upset.  I'm not.  Warmachine has a steep learning curve, and yeah, I have to lose a lot more matches than I have been playing if I want to get better.  But, as I keep telling me kids - the most important thing is to have fun.  And I had a lot of fun, pushing my little metal gators and pigs around the table, groaning at the bad dice, and cheering on the good.

My bag is packed. . . .

but I'm not ready to go.  Everything got assembled and primed (except for some bog trogs that aren't in any list I have been thinking of anyway). It's all put away (I hope - though I will be obsessively double checking it in the morning).  A few things are not put away (copy of the theme lists), but they are with my keys and wallet, so it's pretty unlikely that I will be forgetting them.

I need to remember to grab a camera.  I can't rely on Felix to document my losses.  Camera is now set with everything else.

I'm settled on one of the two army lists, and dithering between two others.  The freedom that comes with an expected series of losses is actually kind of liberating.

First tourney

So, I ran my first Warmachine/Hordes tourney on Saturday - a 25 pt, deathclock, mangled metal event. Although turnout was a little light (5 players total), it seemed like everyone had a good time, and I'm already putting together some ideas and trying to schedule my next couple of events.

I'll be posting pics of it later, but a quick text recap is that we had Legion, Skorne, Mercs (pMagnus), Retribution and Cryx, so no duplicates. Cryx won in the end, although if another round had been played, it could have gone to Mercs. (No worries - some of the players had to split, so the final results were copacetic, and everyone, as I said, seemed happy at the end of the day.)

I learned a few things - first, I need to work on some of my prepping and organization, to reduce some of the time lost between rounds. It wasn't a huge deal, since none of the games actually went full time, but it could have been, and I need to prepare for it.

Second, I need to cut more zone markers, and make a bunch of objective markers and flags. I wound up duplicating some scenario types (though not scenarios), just because I was not as prepared as I should have been. It goes without saying that more of my terrain should be finished and painted, of course. Already, I have finished a few more hills since Saturday, and a few more will be finished by tomorrow night.

Third, while I could use the tourney software, I ran into a couple "Huh?" moments, simply because I was not as familiar with it as I should have been.

But - and this is a big but - everyone had fun, and it all worked. I just see some room for improvement, that's all. I already have an idea that I want to try for the next one, which (unfortunately) means that I have to not only finish the terrain that I currently have, but just about double it. It will make for a couple of big boxes, but I probably won't be bringing anything for someone to borrow unless they ask for it ahead of time. I'll still bring loaners for weekly games, but I think a tourney is going to (generally) mean that everyone has to provide their own figs. (That said, if a novice is willing to come to a tourney and get curb-stomped, albeit in a nice way, and learn the game the hard way. . . I'll loan them an army, if they really want.)