Tournament in Wollongong

Got an email from Graham last night, he has something to do with this (from wargamerau):

Wollongong's first Warmachine/Hordes tournament.

When?
4 December 2011

Start Time?
At the moment 10am (Subject to change due to the University)

Where?
University of Wollongong Building 1, G05 (that means Building 1, Ground floor, Room 05)
Link for campus map
http://www.uow.edu.au/about/campusmap/index.html

What?
35pts of either Warmachine or Hordes. No tiers this time around.
No proxy minis. All minis must be released.
Time Turns as Steamroller 2011.
Two list are allowed but BOTH must be used at least once. If two list are used must be different named caster/ warlock.
Scoring as per Steamroller 2011
Number of rounds determined by the number of players.

Cost?
$10

Prizes.
First place overall. Depending on numbers may be more.

Attitude!
This is a fun tourny. No offensive, cheating or unsporting behaviour will be tolerated.

Attending?
Drop me a line here on WAU or at
sdz364@uowmail.edu.au

See you all then. Cheers.

I will be there, not sure what faction to take yet. 35 points is an interesting level for a tournament, at 50 points you can take everything your caster needs at 35 you have to make some tough choices. Be interesting to see if any of the Sydney people come down.

Thoughts on the last battle

On Saturday my thoughts were pretty focused on the Legion side of things and not so much on the Cygnar side of things so I didn't really turn my mind to how I'd beat the legion army I took until today. So at the risk of sounding like more of a self important arse than I normally do I'm going to give some unwarranted advice.

You took the right army

Blaise is a great caster against Legion because she is designed to get hit and then be able to hit back. Normally she might struggle against heavies but you had the tools to take out my heavies with the Stormclad, stormblades, Gallant, precursors and long gunners. Even the Sword knights were the right things to take. So what went wrong?

Some things need to be protected

The obvious mistake was having Constance too far forward but that's not what I'm talking about. Constance's feat is that she is able to take souls from killed warrior models so you need to force me to kill warrior models. Hide the jacks behind the units so that I have to go through the unit first. I could have maybe taken one out with shooting and if I did kill any warrior models that would have given you more focus to allocate to the jacks to wipe out my beasts on the next turn. Sword knights and precursors are great for this because they are cheap and have high ARM.

Spread out

One of the changes to MKII was the unit coherency, in order to get things like shield wall and defensive line you no longer have to have your entire unit together, you can spread out and have your troops in many small groups. I have them in five or six lots of two if I need to cover lots of ground and split the unit up into 2 or 3 large groups if I want a tank unit that is very difficult to get through. Things like thresher (which my scytheans do as a chain attack) and AOEs find it much harder to damage spread out troops. The only unit I'd ever really consider deploying in ranks is the high shields (dwarves with guns, high armour, ranked attacks, combined attacks and shield wall).

Shooters need to advance too

Long gunners especially, they can't combined attack anything that is in melee and they can double shot if they don't move. First turn run them into a position where they can shoot the important areas of the battlefield and the second turn blast away. Two power 20 shots that hit on anything but a double 1 will have most heavies very worried and 20 individual RAT7 (for aiming) shots at POW 10 will shred infantry. You only need a tiny sliver of LOS in between the bases and there is no penalty for shooting past other models.

Distraction - Battle for Bomaderry

a note to start off, if anyone else wants to post here just say so.


Legion of Everblight
Standard Army
PCs: 75 / 75
27 models

[00] Vayl, Disciple of Everblight (0 / 6 WB)
[10]  >> Ravagore
[09]  >> Scythean
[09]  >> Scythean
[09]  >> Angelius
[08]  >> Seraph
[06]  >> Nephilim Bolt Thrower
[05]  >> Nephilim Soldier
[02]  >> Harrier
[02]  >> Harrier
[02] The Forsaken
[02] The Forsaken
[01] Blighted Nyss Shepherd
[01] Blighted Nyss Shepherd
[04] Blighted Nyss Sorceress & Hellion
[08] Blighted Nyss Swordsmen (9 grunts)
[03]  >> Blighted Nyss Swordsman Abbot & Champion

Vs

Cygnar

Standard Army

PCs: 75 / 75

60 models

[00] Constance Blaize, Knight of the Prophet (0 / 6 WJ remaining)

[02]  >> Squire

[12]  >> Thunderhead

[10]  >> Stormclad

[09]  >> Gallant

[03] Archduke Alain Runewood, Lord of Fharin

[02] Captain Arlan Strangewayes

[10] Long Gunner Infantry (9 grunts)

[05] Stormblade Infantry

[03]  >> Stormblade Infantry Officer & Standard

[06] Sword Knights (9 grunts)

[02]  >> Sword Knight Officer & Standard

[06] Sword Knights (9 grunts)

[08] Precursor Knights (9 grunts)

[02]  >> Precursor Knight Officer & Standard

[01] Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator

(clouds are flags, can't find how to get flags on this thing yet)

Everblight won the roll and forced Cygnar to go first. The unit of sword knights with UA deployed on the top right of the map with runewood in behind them. Then moving towards the centre came the precursor knights, Gallant, other sword knights (in the centre) Thunderhead, stormblades, Stormclad (way out on the left). Blaise, the squire and Reinholdt deployed behind the centre sword knights and long gunners behind them. 

Everblight - Ravagore on the right, then the scythean, bolt thrower, all the flyers and warlock (in the middle), other scythean and the swordsmen out on the far left. The two forsaken stayed near the caster and the two shepherds were behind either scythean. 

Turn 1 - Cygnar - everything advanced but the long gunners. Everything advanced 9" expect precursors and long gunners (precursors 6" and the long gunners stayed back), sword knights used their reform move to go forward (looking back I think Theo thought defensive line was an order, it isn't, only the precursors shield wall is an order. You don't get your reform move though if you run - the rule is a bit confusing you can use reform after your action, so you can't reform if you don't have an action, however if one model in a unit does have an action and therefore can reform then all models in the unit can; essentially you can't reform if you give a run order or if all models in the unit fail a charge). 

Everblight - Vayl leashed the Ravagore (after she moved the ravagore advanced towards her), put chiller on the swordsmen and used the ravagore's animus on the ravagore (and bolt thrower) giving their ranged weapons continuous fire. Ravagore then advanced and shot the sword knights hitting and killing 6. Bolt thrower advanced, shot and was out of range. swordsmen moved towards the left flag everything else stopped about even with the house, about an inch out of boosted charge range of the fastest models in the cygnar front line (Constance speeds things up). 

Right flag disappeared (one flag disappears at random in this scenario)

Cygnar turn 2 - Everything advanced directly forward, the sword knights holding the centre flag and the storm blades contesting (but not holding) the left flag. Crucially Constance moved up to about 5" behind the sword knights. 

Everblight - Forsaken had to move out of the way so I could pull some dodgy everblight bull. Vayl moved right up about 4" from the sword knights, cast incite, feated, put the ravagore animus on the bolt thrower and the Seraph and camped two fury. Bolt thrower shot the Gallant, Ravagore shot the gallant (boosted) but missed. Seraph shot the Thunderhead. Swordsmen charged the stormclad and trashed it. Took the objective but did not attack the stormblades contesting the objective. Scythean on the right charged  and scrapped the Gallant (incite is a nasty spell). Scythean on the left charged the thunderhead, it was out or range of incite and only marginally scratched (I had managed to get a chilled swordsman on it though so it was -2 DEF). The scythean managed to miss twice out of six attacks despite needing 4s. Still the thunderhead was left with only 2 damage boxes (scytheans are awesome). Angelius charged the thunderhead and finished it off. The two harriers ran towards the caster, the second forsaken took all the fury off the Scythean that hit the thunderhead, sorcerer used wind blight (no shooting in her command range) and then moved as close to the long gunners as possible (though mostly out of range). Then the dodgyness began. Vayls feat lets you move one faction model for every enemy  model in her control, due to her advanced position and the masses of infantry facing my much smaller beast army this meant I could move every model in my army. I moved Vayl back to safety with the two forsaken, Seraph, bolt thrower and Ravagore in front of her (Ravagore contesting the middle flag) and put the two Scytheans, Angelius, Nephilim Soldier and two harriers in combat with Constance. I also moved the Sorcerer forward with wind blight (so the long gunners would be caught and unable to fire without moving, thus getting rid of their dual shot ability).

At this point Cygnar conceded. There was little Theo could do, with all his jacks dead and the stormblades engaged by the swordsmen he would not have been able to save his caster. He might have been able to get one of the scytheans but there was too much out there and I had been able to run light on fury so there would not be any left out to hamper my beasts. Constance didn't have the souls camp enough  focus to survive because I had concentrated attacking on the jacks.

So another victory for Everblight. I'm not sure Vayl will come out again in the campaign now that I have her figured out. Now that everyone knows that trick it won't work again (still I think that I can drop enough flying models with reach in enough inconvenient places to cause a lot of trouble with her feat, I also like the idea of being able to have my beasts clear an objective and then put them behind a cheap filler unit) incite is awesome but you have to be within 9" of the enemy for it to work, works very well with her feat but other than that she needs to stay much further away from the enemy to avoid certain death. 

Battle Report - Battle of Blackbutt

Cryx
Standard Army
PCs: 50 / 50
24 models

[00] Warwitch Deneghra (0 / 5 WJ remaining)
[02]  >> Skarlock Thrall
[12]  >> Deathjack
[05]  >> Cankerworm
[05]  >> Ripjaw
[04] Bane Lord Tartarus
[04] Darragh Wrathe
[03] Pistol Wraith
[03] Pistol Wraith
[08] Bane Thralls (9 grunts)
[09] Soulhunters (4 grunts)

vs

Legion of Everblight

Standard Army

PCs: 50 / 50

10 models

[00] Saeryn, Omen of Everblight (0 / 5 WB)

[11]  >> Carnivean

[11]  >> Carnivean

[09]  >> Scythean

[09]  >> Angelius

[08]  >> Seraph

[02]  >> Shredder

[02]  >> Shredder

[02] The Forsaken

[01] Blighted Nyss Shepherd

Scenario - Revelation

You have to score on the flag on the right before you can score on the flag on the left. 3 points to win the match. 

Turn 1 Legion

The forces of the Everblight got the jump on the Cryx and surged forward. The Angelius hid behind the house in the centre of the board while a Carnivean went towards each flag, the Carnivean moving towards the first flag was supported by the Scythean (with Respawn). The Seraph stayed behind with Saern and the two shredders moved up on each flank. The Shepherd stayed on the left flank. 

Turn 1 Cryx

The deathjack moved forward on the objective 2 side of the house and the cankerworm and ripjaw hid behind the otherside of the house from the Angelius. Bane Thralls and Tartarus moved slowly towards the first objective while the cavalry surged down the other flank wide and jack behind the death jack. 

Turn 2 Legion

The Seraph slipstreamed the Carnivean forward and then blasted uselessly at the Deathjack. The Carnivean now found itself in assault range and charged forward spraying through to the soulhunters killing one. It failed to destroy the deathjack despite using all it's fury. The Angelius then flew over the house to drop in on the otherside of the deathjack and kill it with one armour piercing blow. The Shepherd moved forwards and took all the focus off the Carnivean and lastly on the left the shredder ran forward to around the centre of the soulhunters. Saern activated and used blight bringer on the shredder next to the soulhunters killing two and wounding another. She moved up to hide behind the building and then feated. The Carnivean on the right assaulted the obviously out of range Tartarus which allowed it to throw a spray through the bane knights killing a few but failing to kill Tartarus then used it's animus. The Scythean moved to the flag and the Forsaken moved next to Saern and took the focus off the carnivean. The last shredder ran for the pistol wraiths forgetting they were incorporeal. 

Turn 2 Cryx

Having little they could do this turn the two pistol wraiths ran to contest the first flag. The skarlock made ripjaw ghostly and sent it through the house to kill the shepherd. Denegra feated and then sent the cankerworm through the building too to engage the caster. The Soulhunters ran through the blight field (killing one) to engage the Seraph and Daragh wrath moved forward to throw a magic attack at Saern (missing). Bane's advanced. 

Turn 3 Legion

Carnivean turned around and failed to destroy Ripjaw, Scythean and forsaken together scrapped the cankerworm. Angelius flailed uselessly at the Darragh and Seraph killed the Soulhunter. Saern blew up a pistol wraith. Shredder frenzied but thanks to the feat could not charge and so did not make it to the Scythean. The other shredder went rabid and killed a bane. Carnivean walked into combat with the Skarlock thrall and Tartarus. Killed Tartarus but failed to hurt the Skarlock thrall it then put up it's animus.

Turn 3 Cryx

Things were not looking happy, so far the only damage done had been to kill a shepherd but the feat was no longer stopping the Cryx for getting stuck in. Bane's charged the Carnivean took out it's spirit but failed to kill it, they did manage to take out the shredder. Darragh Wrathe hurt the Angelius but did not take out a spiral. Pistol wraith took a shot at the caster but failed to hit, Ripjaw went ghostly and charged the caster missing all but one attack (which Ed then managed to roll a 3 for damage, not enough to actually cause any). 

Turn 4 Legion

Scythean walked around the building to engage Denegra. Somehow she survived but with only a few health boxes left. Seraph used it's animus to pull the Angelius out of combat to where it could charge. Then had a spray itself, though the attack rolls were boosted this should have been a useless exercise however two 6's and a 5 on an attack roll later and Denegra was dead before the Angelius even got to charge.