This time in beautiful (and apparently snowy) Lund in southern Sweden.
51 players from Sweden, Denmark and Finland turned up, alot of WTC-players among them and with Wedding organizing the event I felt it was a very open affair. I didn't go into it with any high hopes for victory because of not playing in a long time and also going with a new/old list that I last played at WTC 2014.
So, on to my lists:
Vlad2
-Juggernaut
Eiryss2
Saxon Orrik
Iron Fang Kovnik
Man-O-War Drakhun
Iron Fang Uhlans (5)
Greylord Outriders (5)
Doom Reavers
Doom Reavers
Widowmakers
I chose to go with Vlad2 instead of Sorscha2 this time, mainly because the EE/Runes pairing means you're in a list chicken when playing B3/S2, so I wanted a list that could handle both EE and Runes. Also, Trolls have really exploded in the Swedish meta lately so I expected alot of them.
I also love playing Vlad2, even though I haven't in a long time.
Butcher3
-War Dog
-Ruin
-Juggernaut
-Juggernaut
Raluk Moorclaw
-Vanguard
Koldun Lord
Gorman di Wulfe
Boomhowler & Co (10)
Alexia & the Risen
Greylord Ternion
New to my list this time around are the Greylord Ternion. I pick them over Widowmakers because of their awesome utility. The clouds can really help keep Butcher safe a round where you fuel a jack up but want to apply pressure with Butcher himself as well. The Ice Cages are VERY helpful for the Juggernauts and Alexia if even 1 hits. And their un-jamming and lane clearing ability with their sprays are really good as well. The War Dog / Rage Howler combo is also something I have come to love with this list and the Boomies are great for scenario play.
Game 1 vs. Robin Fredman (Gorten) Two Fronts
I hate facing Mercs. Simply because I don't play against them very much and I don't feel like I know what they can do. Also, the Earthbreaker is always scary.
Anyway, Robin was playing a Gorten/Ashlynn ADR pairing and I quite easily spotted the Gorten list as an anti-B3 drop, so expected that and picked Vlad.
After ADR subs Robins list looked something like this:
Gorten
-Earthbreaker
Thor
Rockbottom
Hawk
Gastonne
-Vanguard
Kell Bailoch
Press Gangers (10)
Press Gangers (10)
Kayazy Eliminators
Kayazy Eliminators
Robin wins the Roll-off and choose to go first. Here's a pick of our deployment:
Round 1:
Robin runs his stuff up.
I take some shots with the Widowmakers and Eiryss and kill 2 Press Gangers after misses and Toughs. Vlad hides from the Earthbreaker behind a rock.
Round 2:
Robin goes for a play to get rid of Eiryss, running his Press Gangers up to engage her and then shoot the closest one with the Earthbreaker blasts, but he misses and the scatter means he just kills his own models. I also get a Counter-Charge off with the Drakhun, killing another one.
I start grinding down the Press Gangers, and position my Cavalry for a feat next round to go into the Earthbreaker. One of my Uhlans get a charge off and puts some damage on the EB. The Drakhun frees up Eiryss who runs within 5" of the EB. My Doom Reavers also gets stuck in on the Press Gangers. The Juggernaut tramples up to Robins objective and kills it, squashing a couple of Press Gangers on the way. 1-0
Round 3:
The EB without focus gets Tuned Up and kills 1 Uhlan and a couple of Doom Reavers. Eiryss gets killed by the Eliminators on that flank. The other Eliminators go into my Juggernaut with a couple Press Gangers and put light damage on it.
In the middle of Robins turn, this is what it looked like:
The Vanguard also charges in on the Juggernaut, doing minimal damage.
I get rid of most of the Press Gangers by now, thanks to relentless Widowmaker fire and Outrider sprays. I think I kill Saxon Orrik and Hawk this turn with Outriders as well. I feel I must feat this turn to be able to eventually kill the Earthbreaker, but thanks to my rather poor positioning of my Uhlans (far left) I can't quite feat on the targets I'd like to. Feat goes on the Doom Reaver right in front of the EB, the one Uhlan in my zone, the Drakhun, 1 Outrider in his zone and 2 Doom Reavers on my right flank. The Doom Reaver in fron of the EB clears away his blocking Eliminators and Toughs the PG, then my Cav charge in and knocks out his right side, the Drakhun also going in for some more damage. I position my IFK to charge in next turn. The Doomies on the right, together with the Juggernaut kills the Vanguard after some good rolls and also kills one of the Elims on that flank as well as a couple of the remaining PGs.
Round 4:
Thor chose to Tune up the EB instead of repairing the right side, which will have consequenses later in the game. The EB spends his turn by stepping into my zone and killing the feated Drakhun, including dismount. In Robins zone things are looking grim for him with not much that can stop my rampaging Juggernaut. Gorten and Gastonne starts shooting it, but it has plenty of boxes left. His remaining Eliminator charges into my Widowmakers, but misses both attacks.
I go for clearing his zone this turn and successfully does so, however I make a huge mistake when I move Vlad up to dominate. I realise as soon as I start activating other stuff that Gorten just has to feat and then I'm in great Earthbreaker-related trouble. Robin actually has almost run out of stuff to contest his zone with by now, the single Eliminator and Gastonne being his only models able to contest it after my turn and I have an overwhelming presence in his zone so I will be able to clear it again (likely kill both of them next turn if I just go for the control and wait the game out.) I also have a clock advantage (4 minutes to his 2) so giving him this rather good assassination was totally unnecessary. Anyway, I am camping 4 focus, so he'll be dice off 7. 2 Uhlans get charges off again, and the Doom Reaver and IFK gets into the EB as well, leaving him on something like.. 15-20 boxes I believe. I dominate his zone. 3-0
Round 5:
Robin goes for the inevitable assassination and feats with Gorten, Gortens Both Barrels attack + the EB leaves Vlad at 2 boxes after the EB rolled only 1 shot on his good side and 2 shots on the knocked out side, even missing a KD Vlad twice with the broken guns and pretty low damage rolls in general. So I survive.. phew. And score 2 more CP in his turn because he didn't contest so a 5-0 scenario victory. Didn't really feel I deserved that one.
I was super lucky to come out on top of this one and my rusty play really showed this game. Huge mistake putting Vlad in harms way like that when the game was under control, all I had to do was control his zone, kill the Elim and Gastonne next turn and control it again and then dominate it. That is if my opponent didn't time out first. It was a wakeup call for me though and I played my casters super safe for the rest of the tournament.
Game 2 vs. Jan D' Souza (Gaspy2) Incursion
Jan is a super sweet guy from one of the Danish WTC teams that I haven't really talked all that much to, so it was really nice to finally meet him in a game. He had Gaspy2 and Gaspy3, so it was quite obvious what the matchup was gonna be:
Gaspy2
-Helldiver
-Defiler
Bane Lord Tartarus
Orin Midwinter
Blood Witches (6) + UA
Bane Knights (10)
Bane Thralls (10) + UA
Withershadow Combine
I might be missing something from his list, but this was pretty much it.
I won the all-important roll and went first. There was a large hill between the left and middle flag reaching out to his side and a big obstruction on my right side just outside deployment. He also has a diagonal wall in the middle just outside his deployment.
Deployment was fairly straightforward, I had Doomies to either flank with Widowmakers + solos in the middle for AD and Vlad + Jugger and solos in the middle with Outriders to my right and Uhlans to my left.
Jan deployed his Knights and Orin as well as the Arcnode to my right and Witches + Thralls to my left with the Helldiver and WSC centrally.
Round 1:
I run my Doomies max to threaten as much of the board as possible. This does 2 things: Threaten an assassination if Gaspy wants to walk forward and pushes his troops back unless he wants to fight a battle where he is disadvantaged. I keep all of my excarnateable troops well out of his reach (which extends 24" from his Arcnode) even Uhlans are very much excarnateable. Uhlans also swap sides with the Outriders as Orin is deployed quite far out to my right flank. I push up with Eiryss as well, because she isn't really excarnateable (Stealth + shutting down Channeling from Warjacks within 5") so Gaspy would have to personally get very far up the board to be able to excarnate her. This also gives me an even greater assassination pressure. I put her so as to be able to move to either side of the wall on his side, should he move up and thus ignore the cover.
Jan answers my aggressive play with a VERY cautious advance. Hell, both of his Bane units had models running backwards which was a very satisfactory feeling. His Blood Witches ran up the extreme left flank, staying on the table edge. He gave me 2 Bane Knights to trigger Vengeance off of, that's it. Gaspy also moved backwards and put up a couple of clouds as well as Hellbound. Orin casts a Lightning thingy into one of his own Bane Knights and kills a Doom Reaver that way. The Knight survives.
Round 2:
I pretty much maintain my dominant position in the middle of the board, not advancing much as to not outpace my other units that has to hold back as long as the Doomies are alive. Eiryss and the Widowmakers clear the 2 front Bane Knights and my Doomies shuffle around just past the flags on the center line. Eiryss stays up, but critically I forget about his Helldiver and leave her open for a charge.
He goes for Eiryss and allocates 2 to the Helldiver. His Banes start running towards the flags now, as otherwise I will have a really easy scenario victory. I think his Knights to the right just kills 1 of the Doom Reavers even though they got multiple charges off. The Helldiver kills Eiryss and, critically, this makes him move Gaspy up the board and into threat. He puts up 2 clouds to block off the Doomies to my right, but he's still open from my leftmost Doom Reavers and I think I got 3 in threat. Gaspy is camping 1.
Round 3:
I decide to go for the assassination. I finally get to do the "Doom Reaver Pain Train" which I discussed a little in my Vlad2 tactica :D Jugger and Drakhun takes care of the Helldiver to free up a charge lane. Vlad then moves up to extend Transference and feats on most of my leftmost Doom Reavers. Saxon gives them pathfinder, and here we go. One Doom Reaver runs into B2B with Gaspy and 3 others charge him, although 1 is out so I only have 2 feated Doom Reavers. I boost the hit roll on the Doom Reaver I charged in the back, as if I miss that one I'm done. Hit. Berzerks into Gaspy, boosting hit and damage. The other guy redirects his charge attack and since Vlad is just sitting on 1 Focus (should have dropped Assail) I had to choose which roll to boost. I choose to hard roll the 5 needed to hit and then boost damage which kills Gaspy! :)
It felt really good the way I could control the midfield against such a powerful caster and prevent him from using his strengths. I had a legit scenario game at this point as well, I could quite easily score 3 points this turn if the assassination failed, but against Lich2 I usually just want to end it as soon as possible because he can have huge swings with excarante and feat.
I also have to compliment Jan, he's a great guy and the game was really exciting and interesting up to this point. Looking forward to playing you again mate :)
Game 3 vs. Jeppa Resmark (Axis) Recon
Axis
-Corollary
-Conservator
-Conservator
-Conservator
Enigma Foundry
Enigma Foundry
Enigma Foundry
Enigma Foundry
Obstructors (10)
Obstructors (10)
Obstructors (10)
Reductors (10)
I felt pretty good going in to this game as Convergence is one of the easier matchups for Khador, on paper. However with Jeppa crewing the ship anything can happen (as he proved going 4-1 in this tournament and facing 2 Khador and 3 Cryx) That said, I was unsure how well I would be able to handle the attrition machine that is Axis theme with my Vlad2 list. Butcher3 wasn't even on the table here, both of Jeppas lists was good into him.
I get the first turn, which is so important with Vlad2. Jeppa choose the side with a linear obstacle behind his zone where Axis could hang out waiting to dominate and a large hill behind the flag to my right. I had a forest to my center left which could be ideal for my Outriders to hang out in.
No pictures from this game unfortunately.
I deploy Uhlans to my right and Outriders to my left, again Vlad, Juggernaut and solos in the middle. Widowmakers go on the left flank and Doomies mid and right. Eiryss hang out with the Widowmakers. Jeppa deploys his list symetrically, as befitting a CoC player.
Round 1:
HoF goes on the Outriders, Jugger get Assail and Transference on Vlad and off we go. Everything runs to be just out of his 10" threat.
Jeppa runs up with everything as far as he can, inviting me to kill as many models I can chew on :P
Round 2:
Widowmakers, Eiryss and Outriders go to town on the left flank and utterly demolishes it, killing far more than his Foundrys can suck up. I commit 1 or 2 Doom Reavers from each unit, keeping the rest back. I go in with a single Uhlan as well, trying to kill as many dudes as I can when I got his Foundrys overloaded, but he Counter-Charges it with a Conservator, which actually gives me a lane on it with 2 other Uhlans, so I go for some damage into one of his heavys. This move turns out to be pretty crucial for how the game pans out.
Jeppa strikes back by feating with Axis, thinking it will delay my feat and buy him time to gain an attrition advantage. He has real trouble getting to my Outriders though and only kill 1 of them. In the middle crucial events take place. One Conservator goes into and onerounds my Juggernaut after some good rolls. Another Conservators rolls 3 snake eyes in a row trying to hit one of my Uhlans, which means the one behind it is stuck as well. He also fails to kill it, leaving it on 1. This means Axis has no Shield Guards, and Eiryss is still alive, albeit engaged by Obstructors. On my right flank he kills a fair amount of Doom Reavers with the extra bit of threat he got from his feat, leaving 2 in each unit.
Round 3:
I think about this for a while and decide to go for some early damage on Axis. I have 1 Doom Reaver that, if I feat as well, can get to Axis. The Outriders go to work, killing a whole bunch of Obstructors again (I killed one full unit by now) freeing up Eiryss and the Widowmakers. I get 3 Widowmaker shots on the last guy in another unit, but they all miss their 9s as he's in cover. Eiryss aims and shoots Axis and I feat, getting 6 models again. I go for the IFK, Drakhun and all remaining Doomies. The 2 Doom Reavers to the right actually have amazing Berzerk clutches, both killing 4 Obstructors each. I get my one Transferenced attack on Axis and leave him on 7 Boxes. My IFK, Drakhun and the other Doom Reaver from that unit kills the Conservator that just killed my Juggernaut, again with some help from Transference. My 2 remaining Uhlans hang back in the hopes of charging something next round.
Jeppa finally kills that annoying Uhlan with some sprays from the Reductors. He sends one of his heavies into my Drakhun, triggering the Dismount which he then can't get to. Unfortunately for Jeppa nothing he has that can reliably kill the Doom Reaver engaging Axis can get to it, so Axis has to stay put and kill it himself unless he wants to risk a P+S 16 Weapon Master Freestrike, which is 50/50 to kill him. His other Conservator runs into position in front of Axis. He runs some Obstructors in to engage Eiryss and the Widowmakers again. He kills 1 of the 2 Doom Reavers to the right with CMAs.
Round 4:
At the start of this turn I just set out to attrition hard and hopefully kill full units, but I wanted to try Jeppa a bit as well and tempt him to Counter-Charge his Shield Guard away from Axis. I activate the Outriders first and one of them goes into a very good position where I get 5-6 models with a single spray and he decides to go for it. He kills the Outrider, but my remaining 3 easily clears Eiryss and my Widowmakers clears a charge lane for the IFK to Axis. Eiryss aims, again, and shoots off Axis Focus, again. Vlad moves up and boosts a Razorwind into Axis for the win.
The plan was to charge him with the IFK, but as it turned out I didn't need to :)
The Outriders were absolute stars in this game. The many units and their low CMD and defensive stats meant I easily got 4-5 dudes per spray and HoF meant that I only missed like 3-4 hit rolls over the entire game. It was crazy.
Of course, it's quite a big mistake by Jeppa to Counter-Charge his only Shield Guard away from Axis at 7 boxes, but it speaks volumes that such a good player would do that to kill a single Outrider. They were that hard to deal with for him. The attrition game had actually swung in his favor by now, it would all come down to how many units I could eradicate completely this turn and also if I could handle his 2 remaining heavies. That was most uncertain.
Anyway, that wraps up day 1, it was indeed a pleasant feeling going to bed still undefeated.
Day 2 coming soon!
