I played in a tourney this past weekend

[HuronBH]

Hey, here is a quick(read long) battle report about a tourney I played in this past sunday. I used my Khador Army(my Primary Warmachine Faction). The format, called Escalation, was kind of interesting. The first game was 350pts and lasted, 30 minutes. The second game was 500pts and last 45 minutes. The third and fourth games were both 750pts and last one hour. Your list for each games was built on the list from a previous level, with the last game allowing you to create a 750pt army from 1000pts a thousand point list of models.

GAME 1: Vlad vs Seige.
The game played very quickly as my oppenent was fairly new to the game and his list wasn't as tuned as mine was. I took Vlad, a Spriggan, 8 IFP + Unit Attachment, and Eiryss(yeah I know, Eiryss in 350pts, shame, shame). My opponent had Seige, a small unit of sword knights, a unit of Trenchers with the new Unit Attachment and Finn. I went first moving the IFP up and sheild walling to cover Vlad as he moved up and popped his feat. For those that don't know, Vlad's feat doubles the spd of all friendly Khador jacks in his control area. This sent the Spriggan up 8 inches to rain explosive death on the trenchers with his grenade launchers(which ended up not kill a single model). My opponents turn went by with me only lossing 1 IFP to a trencher CRA shot, Finn was about a half inch out of range so couldn't shoot me(thankfully). Turn two I charged the trenchers with the IFP and Spriggan supported by Vlad casting Signs and Portents and killed all but one of them and Finn. His turn saw seige emurging out of his protective Sword knight screen in order to shoot at the Spriggan(which took out its shield with the help of Siege's feat). Unfortunately that left Siege open to a charge from the Spriggan after Eiryss popped out and took away his focus and that was the end of game one.

GAME 2: Vlad vs Skarre
For this game, I took the Vlad list from game 1 and add in Widowmakers, a minimum unit of Winter Guard with a Weapon Attachment and a WG Mortar team. He had Skarre, Deathjack, 2 Nightwretches, Unit of Banes, unit of Biles, a Skarlock, and a Necrotech. Suffice to say I killed the Deathjack early with a combined charge from the IFP and Spriggan. The game came down to him needing to roll a 15 on 3D6 on the turn he Skarre bombed Vlad and luckily for me he rolled a 14 and Vlad survived(SO CLOSE!!) This allowed Vlad to send the Spriggan steamrolling over to Skarre and killing her with a Sighs & Portented charge attack. This was a really close game and was probably my favortie game of the tourney.

GAME 3: Vlad vs Gorten
This was a bit of a rematch from a tourney I played in a few monthes ago. My oppenent was a guy I had known for a while who was playing a suprisingly effective Searforge Dwarf Merc list. It had Gorten, 5 Gunbunnies, a Driller, 2 units of 8 High Shields, Herne & Jonne, and 3 Bokurs(yes, 3 Bokurs!). I added to my previous 500pt block a second mortar team, a unit of 5 MoW Demo Core, 4 MoW Shocktroopers, and Alexia and the Risen. Turn 1 he moved out his AD deployed High Shields and took some shots at my IFP, but failed to kill anything. On my turn I respond by charging out and slaughtering the offending High Shields. This move almost cost me the game as in the next turn all but 1 of the IFP were mercilessly slaughter by his entire army, bring them down to only the weaponless standard bearer from the UA left alive. The game came down to VPs and thanks to an incredible charge from a Thrall Warrior that Alexia created in my last turn, I managed to Kill a Bokur with full health allowing my Demo Core to charge and kill Herne and Jonne giving me the win. The Thrall Warrior charge the Bokur and rolled a 4, 5, 6, 6, for damage, it was incredible and really my only hope of pulling out the win(would have been a tie other wise).

GAME 4: Epic Vlad vs the Testament of Menoth
In game 4 we were allowed to add an additional 250 points to the 750pt point block from the previous game. Then, based on the 1000pts available to us we had to create a legal 750pt army. Also if the warcaster you had used so far had an epic version, you were allowed to upgrade them to epic status. At this point, I had won my first 3 games, had Best of Khador locked down, and was playing the the Championship game for the Champion Coin and Gold Cards(I've never won a tourney but have made it to the final game around 5 times now, always losing to my last opponent).

Then I found out my opponent was to be a close friend of mine named Thel(he goes by "Menoth's_Gambit" on the PP forums). He has been playing warmachine longer then I have and was one of the first PGers in my area way back when prime was first released. Not only did I know my opponent, my eVlad list and his Testament list have a long and color history together. Each of us has won around half of our games against each other when playing these casters and both know very well what each others caster can do.

I sware, even with my knowledge of the Testament and my extensive track record of wins with eVlad over the last year, I must of appeared like a fresh Noob playing his first game of warmachine because nothing I did worked. He had the Testament, Zealots with a Monolith Bearer, a full unit of Flame Guard Cleansers, Vilmon, Deliverers, the Avatar, a Revenger, a unit of Choir, Kell, the piper, and a full unit of Vengers(Exemplar Cav). I upgrade Vlad to eVlad and dropped the WG for a unit of Greylords and a Manhunter. He came at me from turn 1 with the Zealots and Cleansers supported by the Avatar and Revenger with the Vengers heading around my flank, and nothing I tried could stop them.

Both mortars missed and deviated off target, and the widowmakers only succeed in killing 2 Cleanser. Turn two he got in my face with the Zealot while popping the Monolith Bearer's mini feat Greater Destiny making ever model in the unit unkillable and managed to dismantle the IFP unit and put some serious hurt on the Demo Core. Then he moved up 2 Cleansers just outside my Melee range and shot each in the back with Kell, Causing Catostrophic(and very unexpected) damage to the rest of the Demo Core and Shocktroopers. All the while his Cav which had out flanked me by this time were bearing down on my now weakened army. The fire continous effect caused by the exploding cleansers managed to wipe out the remainder of the Demo Core unit and put a serious about of damage on my Shocktroopers.

With the end of time for the round in site and the likely hood of me getting another turn slim to none, I popped eVlads feat to see if I could some how at least pull a draw out of my hat on this disappointment of a game. I ended up getting to select 6 models, the max possible, to enhance with eVlads feat. I picked both Mortar team gunners, 3 Shocktroopers, and the Manhunter. All but the Manhunter earned me some needec VPs, Killing the remainder of the Cleanser, his Revenger, and on a lucky scatter all but one acolyte in his choir unit.

The manhunter on the other hand, my secret weapon when it comes time to pop eVlads feat died to a free strike from a Zealot. It is important to note that the Manhunter's DEF/ARM while on eVlads feat is 17/17. My opponent rolled a 10 on 2D6 to hit and a 17 on 3D6 to kill the manhunter before he could scrap the Avatar with his 4 P+S 14+4D6 damage attacks. After losing the Manhunter we were tied for VPs at the end of my turn, all he need to do was kill 1 model, the gunner of a Mortar team who had lost the loader in the previous turn which his cav did easily and he won the game on VPs.


Overall it was a great tourney and in the end I walked away with my Third Khador coin and some new friends that play warmachine. I'll be headed back to the store that hosted this tourney next month for another tourney with a format called Last Man Standing. You get 750pts of models to start with, and what gets killed in one game stays dead in all the following games. You keep playing rounds until your army is completely wiped out and your are eliminated from play. Sounds like alot of fun to me, maybe I'll break out the All Man-O-War, eVlad army for this one, not sure yet though.

Hope you enjoyed my report...


-jay

[Skrit]

I surely did!

It makes me want to start learning the rules soon so I can play a few games!:)

[ToMaZ]

Aaah finally another khador player nice report.

You sure were increadibly lucky against skarre I never liked playing against her. Annoying bomb. If I know that I come up against skarre in friendly games I usually use Irusk, since I can have him hang back a bit I haven't seen her a lot on tourneys though... mostly the Coven, Deneghra or Terminus.

Too bad you lost that final game!
And that last man standing type sounds awesome, I should ask the local store to use this on their next tourney!!

[Demi_morgana]

Hope you enjoyed my report...

the only thing I really didn't enjoy is You had luck with skarre's bomb