Blood & Oil - Tournament Report

Hi everybody. Time for another tournament report. Last one for a while though. I went up to Leicester to the Blood & Oil tournament held there. It was a 50pt, three list masters event with 66 players. I went up with Deneghra1, Skarre1 and Asphyxious3 as my lists (on the forums here). I hoped to win three games out of the six played as that has been my previous experience in masters events. That didn't happen though so do read on.

Oh, terrain didn't play a part in any of these games. It was limited to four per table and always in each of the corners leaving a football pitch in the centre of the table. The organisers know this is an issue and they say it'll be sorted for next year. We'll see when I go back.

Game 1, Close Quarters, vs Richard Padget, Circle Orboros

So the draw for the first round went up a couple of days early as people had submitted their lists a week before hand. So I knew I was up against Rich Padget, a host of Alpha Strike Radio, a good opponent and a great laugh. I've been listening to his talks on the podcast and he's been having a couple of issues with tournaments recently, but anything he brings can be trouble. He could choose between both Kruegers and Morvahna2. Krueger1 has been the popular choice verses Cryx because he can clear infantry like nobodies business but Morvahna2 has been used against me a couple of times now.

No matter what his choice was I was going to play Gaspy3. Yes, Chain Lightning is going to be an issue but hopefully I can strike first and hard and not loose too many troops along the way. Krueger2, well, I'm speedy enough to get around his feat and I don't have much shooting to worry about stormwall and Morvahna2 is good but I can hopefully attrition better, especially since my game in the Southwest Finals gave me an idea about what she can do.

The final choice was Gaspy3 vs Krueger1 and as I lost the roll to go first I choose a side that had little effect on the battle. Rich's Druids moved up and put up clouds. Gators moved up behind with the ferals and stones (2 units) behind them as well. Gators had Lightning Tendrils put on them and that was about it. I tried to charge my raiders at the druids but they were half an inch out of reach range (well done Rich). They then spread out and had Ashen Veil put on them from the Deathjack. Blood witches went up the middle as well and Nightmare went right, Deathjack left.

 

The gatormen came up and with re-rolls they killed a couple of raiders but left most still around for the counter-strike. Druids put up clouds again and everything else clumped up behind. So I sent in the raiders and took three of the gatormen down with Power Swell helping greatly (Carnage as well to get around the druids' clouds). Blood witches again came up behind and went incorporeal this time to limit damage.

Rich timed his feat pretty well, doing a mass amount of damage to both satyxis units. My raiders were entirely gone and the witches left with three or four members. Oh well, at least I got a load of corpse tokens for them. Gators moved up and so did two ferals to threaten my heavy stuff. Time for me to feat and deal some damage. The blood witches moved in on the gators and took one out. Gaspy moved to the closest flag, camped six focus and feated. Then I screwed up with Nightmare. I thought he could walk and attack a feral but it was out of reach, so he used his one focus to rip up a gallows grove. Bugger, that will cost me. The Deathjack moved close to Gaspy and put Ashen Veil on him to make him even more difficult to kill.

This was a great turn in some ways for Rich. He used a feral each to destroy both my jacks and the blood witches were taken out of the picture. His third feral ran to engage Vociferon to ensure no arcing scenagians. and that's about it. But this was also a great turn for me as I used Gaspy's twenty focus that turn to kill a feral, cast Carnage and still camp at around twenty-five armour. Then, charging mechanithralls took care of the feral that took down the Deathjack and the last gator. I even managed to clear the flag and score a control point.

Rich was running low on his deathclock now though and he ran Krueger across to start scoring his flag while sending in stones to contest mine. Fortunately, mechanithralls can easily destroy shifting stones. Over the next couple of turns Rich did some very good work at killing mechanithralls with his last feral and a couple of devourings from the druid overseer but he ran out of time on the deathclock with the final CP score being 4-3 in my favour.

Things learnt:

I wasted Nightmare by not checking out the distance to the feral carefully enough. Deathjack was also misused as a feral could easily get to him. I should have jammed up his middle feral more to help protect him. Next time will be better.

Game 2, Outflank, vs Aaron Kenny, Cryx

I'm feeling pretty good. I've won one game and I get matched up against Aaron Kenny, the guy who beat me in the finals of the Midlands Steamroller. Oh dear. Anyways, he had both Skarres and Terminus to use against me. Last time we played Gaspy3 got destroyed by Skarre2 but I think my Deneghra list can deal with most of Aaron's lists. The major issue is that all of Aaron's lists had bile thralls and I needed some accurate shooting to deal with those before they wrecked my troops. Deneghra1 was chosen and Aaron picked Terminus with; Kraken, bane thralls, mechanithralls, two necrosurgeons, biles, withershadow and a few other sundries.

I went first to gain board position with Boomhowlers on the left, Nyss centred and raiders out to the right zone. Aaron put Terminus front and centre with mechanithralls all around. The kraken went to my left and the bane thralls had to run to the right, around a building.

Time to start shooting biles then. Dougle went first and used his mini-feat to get extra range. Boomhowlers moved up and shot a couple of biles with the Nyss making sure that three of the buggers died. An arc node ran infront of Aaron's army to cast venom at a mechanithrall and caught both necrosurgeons. Unfortunately even with boosting I missed one, but one got put into the dirt. Less mechanithralls coming back now. Finally the raiders made it really difficult for Aaron to get into the right zone. Slightly a bad move though.

Aaron started his turn by camping everything and thanks to the raiders getting too close to Madelyn Corbeau a bile moved closer to my Boomhowlers, crap. Terminus feated and charged into combat killing a couple of raiders and a Nyss. Nyss failed command but Rockbottom was there to keep them active. The mechanithralls did a little bit of damage to the extended arc node but it was still active. Then the biles moved forward and killed a couple of Boomhowlers and Nyss. The kraken charged in on the Boomhowler that survived but he passed both tough checks and the bane thralls also attempted to kill some raiders but failed. Thanks to the corrosion Terminus gained nine souls from his feat turn.

I needed to destroy the kraken and the remaining biles in my turn. The mechanithralls nor bane thralls couldn't do much to me as they were jammed up by the raiders. So with Deneghra I moved slightly to get the kraken within feat range and stay more than 9" from Terminus so he can't hit me in combat. Deneghra feated and cast Parasite on the kraken then sent in the Boomhowlers while she camped three focus. Boomhowlers killed the kraken with their charges and the Nyss finished off the bile thralls. Finally over on the right the raiders moved to engage as much as possible and cause damage were they could.

Aaron decides to go for the assassination. Corbeau moves Terminus closer to Deneghra then Aaron does his best to clear a route so he's not screwed by stealth. A couple of the mechanithralls I had moved in to run interference for this reason went down to two of the withershadow's spells but Tremulus (the puppet master one) was whipped by an engaging raider. Then Terminus activates and boosts three Hellfires at Deneghra. Needing 12s he hit one of the three and did some damage but Deneghra survived. As I didn't want to take another hit like that I used Deneghra to scourge Terminus to the ground, Parasite him and move away. Then multiple shots from MacNaile, Rockbottom, nightwretch, etc. killed Terminus.

Things learnt:

My major mistake was moving the raiders into range of Corbeau's ability to move other models. Early in that turn I had thought I'd better not do that and I paid for that mistake with the lose of five or six models.

Game 3, Destruction, vs Christopher Wills, Circle Oroboros

Christopher had Kromac, Baldur2 and Morvahna2 to choose from. I could go for either Skarre or Gaspy as either isn't really effected by druids or Kromac but as Gaspy3 is great against hordes I stuck with him. Christopher chose Kromac who was running; two stalkers, gorax, wold guardian, woldwatcher, woldstalkers and two units of shifting stones (one UA of course). As I lost the roll I chose the more open side to pincer Christopher's early advance.

Ignoring the normal first turn running, mostly because I can't remember it that well. The first strike happened when a stalker teleported in to destroy the Deathjack, with the help of Primal and Wild Aggression. Crap. So I used Death Field from Ragman and destroyed him with the bokur and the blood witches. The raiders then put some damage on the far left objective with the help of Power Swell and destroyed all of the woldstalkers, leaving their stone keeper alive though. Oh, and one of the UA'd stones was killed. Gaspy moved past the wreck of Deathjack up towards the central zone and feated.

Having taken out most of Christopher's units and with Gaspy's feat up not much happened in response as I think Christopher didn't want to fuel my feat. I got couple of soul tokens from a spell and a boost but that's it. The last stalker did come in to do a bit of damage but berserk can only do so much without spending fury. Christopher also clammed up the remaining stones to protect Kromac from any odd charges and such. So with the little I gained from my feat I sent Nightmare into the wold guardian (who was protected by Inviolable Resolve) to cause damage. However, as I'd used prey on Kromac (stupid me) not much damage was cause. The blood witches and mechanithralls did manage to destroy the stalker and put some damage on the little wold as well. The raiders took care of the druid wilder and tried to take down the objective, but their whips couldn't do that much.

Christopher used the wold guardian to put some massive hurt upon Nightmare, removing both his arms. But his cortex and movement still worked at the end of the punishment. The woldwatcher cleared off the mechanithralls around him but couldn't move to safety unfortunately. Kromac started to use rift to deal with the troops but the sea witch was alive and the raiders survived while a couple of blood witches went under. My turn and my mechanithralls started to turn the battle. As Christopher was left with Kromac and easy to hit stones and wolds mechanithralls are very useful at that point. The swamp gobbers were killed by raiders and the mechanithralls took care of multiple shifting stones and the far right objective. Nightmare used his crippled arms to scratch at the small wold but that was ineffectual. 1 CP to me.

Running really low on stuff now so Christopher send casts rift again at my mechanithralls then moves off to feat and leap into melee range of a necrosurgeon who died on his axes. The wold guardian finishes off Nightmare and the woldwatcher kills a couple more mechanithralls. My turn comes around again and I wanted to get this finshed as fast as possible. Kromac was quite far from Gaspy (I was staying over 13" away at all times) and camping a fair few fury so I didn't want to try an assassination. Instead Gaspy moved up and struck the far left objective from the game and made sure he was in the zone to dominate. The mechanithralls then charged in to kill as much as possible. At the end of my turn all Christopher had was Kromac and a wold guardian with one box in spirit left. 4 CPs to me. Christopher activates the wold guardian to kill a mechanithrall and beat back into the zone but boosted initials fail to hit and the final purchased attack also misses. 6 CPs to me.

Things learnt:

Christopher killed off my raider captain in his first turn by teleporting the woldwatcher and shooting her on the advanced deployment line. That could have been the sea witch which would have been a major problem. Watch out for similar in the future. Also Wild Aggression and Primal counter Ashen Veil quite well so try to be more careful with heavies/casters.

Game 4, Into The Breach, vs Jun Chan, Skorne

Jun Chan, the guy who I beat in the Southwest steamroller finals (link). A great guy who I've played against a few times now. Always knows what his stuff can do and plays it well. But his club is missing a regular Cryx player and as such things can surprise him.

Anyways, this time he had brought Hexeris1, Xerxis and Morghoul1. Hexeris was played against Gaspy3 at the Southwest finals and I didn't think he'd go for that match-up again as his list had changed. Morghoul doesn't really like Cryx and after chatting with Jun I had the feeling he would choose Xerxis. So I went for Deneghra1 to both cut through his mass of medium bases and shoot as much as possible. Jun did choose Xerxis and as I won the roll to go first I took the advantage. Xerxis had a max unit of Cetrarti, two min units of incindiarii & arcuarii, gladiator and archidon.

Raiders ran front and centre to put pressure on Jun while the Boomhowlers went left into the zone and Nyss up behind the raiders. Jun moved everything forward in a big clump with incindiarii shots coming in to set a couple of troops on fire here and there. Cetrarti at the front with Defenders Ward on them. So I debated about either holding back my raiders another turn or charging in to cause issues. After putting Crippling Grasp on the cetrarti I charged in with the raiders and took a couple of them off the board. Boomhowlers and Nyss moved up again but that was it.

Xerxis wasn't too bothered about his front lines being crippled though as martial discipline allowed his troops to move through each other. Xerxis came out and attempted to look big and strong infront of his men but had to purchase some extra attacks to hit the dodging raiders. He them moved back slightly, camping one fury. Then the rest of his troops came forward and killed off most of the raiders on the front lines. Jun's turn ended with Xerxis in surrounded by his troops, a gladiator slamming into a knocked down Boomhowler (who didn't move) and a Nyss dying to an incindiarii shot.

My turn and I could keep fighting the attrition and see if I can grind the mass of troops down. Instead I go for the throat and try to assassinate. My raiders move to the edge of reach on a cataphract but did little damage. The allowed me to move my last arc node up and be fairly certain of being outside of engagement. Deneghra then moves up enough to get Xerxis under her feat, casts scourge on a cataphract in base contact with Xerxis then Parasite on Xerxis himself. MacNaile moves up, gives out Double Powder Rations and starts shooting Xerxis. Four shots later and the only transfer has gone (double six on damage). The Nyss then combine their shots and Xerxis was dead.

Things learnt:

After the game Jun and I were chatting away with some others and they made the following point. If you are playing against Cryx, 1. Kill their arc nodes, 2. Kill their arc nodes, and 3. if you can't follow 1 or 2 engage the arc nodes. Jun didn't do this and thus I'm fairly lucky. I need to make sure he couldn't have run and engage my bone chickens next time.

Game 5, Incursion, vs Dan Cunningham, Protectorate of Menoth

Day two of the tournament and thanks to my friend Chris I'd had a chance to skim over Dan's lists in the Menoth forums (linky dfafad). Which was handy as it gave me a clue as to what Dan would choose to play against me. We'd also been chatting over twitter Saturday evening and both of us faced a choice. Play Skarre1/Feora1 this match or be locked into them for the final game of the tournament. As my Skarre list has been designed to deal with Menoth my choice was easy. Dan's seemed to take a little while more, but it did end up with Feora1 vs Skarre1.

I won the roll and went first. The kraken went up the centre with each bane knight unit up the flanks. Dan sent the dwarfs to my left, clensers centre left, reckoners centre with Feora behind and zealots and knight exemplar seneschals up the right. Then the centre flag went away.

Seeing an easy way to kill one of the exemplar seneschals I loaded up the kraken with two focus and using its hellblaster it killed the seneschal and three of the zealots. Other than that I made sure to contest each flag with one bane knight so I could try for venegance if he scored off a flag. Instead Dan jammed with mini-feated zealots on the right and was reserved with everything else in his army. Up until the final move of his when the remaining seneschal ran to be infront of the kraken.

I didn't see a route to Feora and was slightly worried about the reckoners taking out Skarre or the kraken so Skarre used her feat and camped four focus. Bane knights charged in to cause heavy damage on what they could then the kraken trampled and got a reckoner down to one movement box left. I then cleared up the seneschal with Tartarus and passed the turn over.

Dan didn't move anything. He paused and looked at the game state. We chatted about the fact he was going to try and kill me when I asked a question I should have done at the beginning of the game, "what P+S can she get up to?"

Turns out the answer is 19 and when my armour was 24 Dan only needed a couple of hits to land and I was in real danger of losing. He cleared the route of a bane knight (who was quite dodgy and needed a lot to die) did every thing exactly right including having the kraken miss its free strike. Then the dice said no. He only hit twice out of five attacks. He feated to set Skarre on fire which didn't go out either, but Skarre survived with one or two health left and ten focus to play with. Dan called the game there.

Things learnt:

Many a time in writing these reports I mention I should always look at the caster's cards. Do I? Nope. I need to do this to stop being caught out in this manner. It was a good assassination chance that shouldn't have been given to Dan.

Game 6, Process of Elimination, vs Lewis Johnson, Cygnar

Looking at the lists I saw that Lewis had Caine2, and both Haley's. Now I haven't played against Lewis for a couple of years as he's always been doing well in tournaments whilst I wasn't. Deneghra was probably my best choice but I was really worried about the potential of a Caine assassination run. Skarre wouldn't stand upto the amount of shooting that Haley1 could put out so I went for the jack of all trades choice of Gaspy3. Lewis put against that Haley1 with stormwall, tempest blazers, storm lances, gun mages + UA, Journeyman warcaster and Gorman Di Wulfe. As I won the roll I decided to gain board position against Lewis and went first.

Raiders moved forwards 11" (enough to get up the table but not so much that I can't collect their corpses). They leaned slightly left and the blood witches slightly right. Nightmare on the right up against the stormwall (prey target) and Deathjack on the left putting Ashen Veil on the raiders. Lewis did Haley fairly early in his turn and put Deadeye on the blazers and Temporal Barrier on Haley. He then charged forwards to put the front ranks of the raiders in hie control range. Things then moved up very cautiously. The blazers then shot at three of the raiders, hitting each time, and killed six of them. They failed command and that was about it.

My turn and I am buggered. I can't engage his shooting. My troops are going to be shot off the table as there isn't much in the way of terrain to hide behind and though Haley has been aggressive, she is camping two focus so a lucky spell assassination is off the table (DEF 18 in Gorman's cloud and each focus can stop a spell). So I fully camp with Gapsy. The blood witches move forward to spread into the centre and right of the table and go incorporeal. The raiders move behind the witches and rally. Gaspy then feats and moves forward. I did think about charging but that would have put me far too close to the stormwall for comfort. Deathjack then puts Ashen Veil on Gaspy while putting a toe into the zone.

So I have protected my heavy stuff fairly well. Lewis can't kill any of the heavies nor Gaspy. Instead he goes for scenario. Haley moves, more to the left but a little forward and puts Temporal Barrier up again. He also put Arcane Shield on Stormwall while the journeyman upkept it on the stormwall. Gorman puts a cloud infront of Haley, blocking LoS. The Stormlances take out the left objective while the gun mages push Deathjack out of the zone and make sure that nothing else is contesting. Stormwall puts down some covering fire but that's about it. 3 CPs to Lewis.

It has really gone down the pan now. All I can try to do is contest the zones and survive. Unlikely as Haley has yet to feat. There was a slight hope, Haley was very close to being 10" away from Gaspy, enough to put her in Mobility and walk range. Unfortunately it was 10" and a bit. Lewis was shocked to learn the distance but as he played it safer than he thought he needed it was all good for him. Gaspy moves up to be about front and centre in the left zone. Deathjack also moves in and is surrounded by mechanithralls and stitch thralls. Nightmare takes a swing at the right objective but it's down to the raiders to give me a control point. I pass the turn back to Lewis.

At this point he feats, casts Temporal Barrier and Deadeye on the gun mages, and kills lots of things. Haley kills two mechanithralls. The stormlances kill the rest in the zone with electroleaps. Deathjack is pushes out of the zone and the bokur is kill by the gun mages. Lewis has cleared the zone and will score another two control points. He asks if it's ok to go for army points and I say "sure."

Everything except Gaspy and Deathjack dies. I didn't kill anything of Lewis'. 5 CPs to 1 in favour of Lewis and 42 points of dead Cryx. Ouch

Things learnt:

Chatting with Lewis after the game and we discussed things that I could have done differently. Choosing to go second so I can control the scenario more. Picking Skarre as my list as the kraken would be difficult to deal with. Putting prey on an objective so Nightmare gets the speed increase.

I don't regret any of my choices for the final game. However, if I went into another game with a similar situation I would chose differently. Deneghra1 should have been my choice from the outset in my opinion. Taking first would still be my choice no matter what caster, I need to get up the table with my lists. As for Nightmare's prey target, without the damage buff Nightmare wouldn't be able to do the job against an unbuffed stormwall, let alone the Arcane Shield version. It was always going to be a bloody difficult match-up with the caster being the right choice and the player being one of the best around.

So after the tournament was finished, the scores were announced and I came second. Quite a bit better then I had hoped. I enjoyed the whole weekend and will be back next time.

Milton Kenyes 35pt Tournament

Back to 35 points for the next tournament. Held at Wargames Workshop's Milton Keynes store and ran by Barrie and Ian (of Guardians of Tyr). My plan was to have Gaspy3 and Skarre2 to run but I had forgotten one important model, Skarre herself. So a quick look through the lists stored on my phone and out came a Gaspy1 theme list with two mechanithralls, two slayers, reaper and Cankerworm.

Game 1, Incursion, vs Alistair Rolt, Legion of Everblight

Alistair had Thagrosh1 and Absylonia with him. Thags had Typhon, Carnivean , swordsmen, striders and the spawning vessel. Abby brought the archangel, striders & UA and I think the swordsmen again. Gaspy3 was going to be the best choice here. Alistair chose Thags1, took first turn and I set up my blood witches against his swordsmen and the raiders against the striders.

Alistair sent the striders in clump up around the left flag while the swordsmen ran into straight lines facing the right flag. Both beasts and Thags took the centre. My raiders got desperate pace and ran to engage all of the striders, taking them out of the equation, especially with Ashen Veil on them. The blood witches ran to be able to charge the swordsmen while mostly staying out of their threat range. Nightmare and Gaspy hid behind a nice little wall.

As the middle flag went away Alistair was going to have a bit of difficulty scoring control points here. Swordsmen advanced past the right flag and the Carnivean moved in support while Typhon tried and mostly failed to spray my raiders on the hill with the striders. The striders also failed to kill any of the raiders. My turn and I loaded up Nightmare and feated. Nightmare failed to kill his carnivean prey, taking out the body and mind though. The blood witches charged into the swordsmen and had their best turn ever. Alistair had six swordsmen on the front line and with death strike only one swordsman at the back survived. They also went incorporeal this turn to prevent counter-strikes. The raiders killed most of the striders this turn as well, who then failed their command check.

No control points scored as yet but with the striders fleeing, the carnivean heavily damaged and Typhon out of position Alistair couldn't do much. The carnivean boosted to hit Nightmare and removed a few boxes. Striders rallied and that's about it. So Gaspy had a few focus points to enjoy so he cast Mobility, fuelled up Nightmare and moved to dominate the left flag. Ragman ran to the right flag as the blood witches charged and removed the carnivean from play. Nightmare then went and destroyed Typhon. The raiders cleared the flag of the last of the striders and I scored three control points.

Alistair plays this turn very cautiously and while Typhon was feated back into play very few attacks were made against me. Typhon contested the right flag and the spawning vessel moved to surround Nightmare's current prey, Thagrosh. However, as Alistair didn't contest the left flag I went to five control points and won the game.

Things learnt:

I realised after the day had been done I forgot about Death Shroud, the -2 strength aura of Thagrosh1. It wouldn't have made much of a difference but it was something we both missed. Hopefully that won't happen again.

Game 2, Close Quarters, vs Daniel Bearup, Cygnar

Here's also were I remembered my camera so the photos started to happen now. Last time at Milton Keynes Daniel defeated my Gaspy3 list. But given the scenario I thought Gaspy1 had a very good chance against Haley2, Siege could have been a slight issue but I didn't see Daniel picking him. Fortunately for me I won the roll-off and went first to gain board position.

Below you can see the results of my first turn. My warjacks were on a major push forwards as I hoped to push Daniel to feat his first turn. The mechanithralls hung slightly back as they needed to fuel up the necrosurgeons and Gaspy sat in a wreck marker.

The plan worked and Haley feated first turn as the fireflies and sword knights ran up. Haley also sent in the stormclad against the Cankerworm who lived but only had three boxes left, all in his head. My luck was in it seemed. So with Daniel controlling my turn things shuffled around but he allowed the Cankerworm to activate before the reaper. This allow me to un-engage the stormclad and drag him in. Meanwhile the right-hand slayer took care of the right-hand firefly.

That's it for photos though. Daniel sent in the sword knights to kill 6 mechanithralls and finish off Cankerworm. At this point my jacks started to become heavily disrupted as Daniel had plenty of stormcallers. Arcane shield went on the sword knights as did the piper's call that gives +1 DEF. Haley cast Time Bomb on the left slayer and that was about it. My turn and the skarlock tried to get parasite on the sword knights but failed. The reaper finished off the stormclad and the mechanithralls tried to hit or damage the sword knights but mostly failed. Gaspy hung back attempting to stop any assassination attempts as he was fuelling his jacks heavily.

At this point the game became a grind fest. The sword knights killed more mechanithralls and Haley used telekinesis on the left slayer to pop him outside of contesting range. She moved up and started the control point battle. A firefly was put in the way of the slayer who was also disrupted. 1 CP to Daniel.

More mechanithralls came on the table and this time the skarlock landed Parasite. Using each fist individually the sword knights took a battering as the right slayer killed a stormcaller, (I forgot, he killed Anastasia de Bray the turn before). The reaper tried a long shot drag on Haley but failed to hit and Gaspy moved to his flag. The slayer again moved into contesting range of Haley's flag. 1 CP for both of us.

Daniel used both his last remaining stormcaller and the squire to jam up my left hand jacks. After he had telekinesis'd the slayer backwards again. The last of the sword knights went into the mechanithralls and that was about it for his turn. 2 CPs for Daniel, 1 for me.

Knowing dice down was happening very soon my skarlock moved up and killed the only sword knight within contesting range of my flag. The right hand slayer charged into the journeyman warcaster to remove Arcane Shield and the two heavies on the left cleared out the squire and the stormcaller to also move into contesting range. The mechanithralls killed all but one of the sword knights and then dice down was called. 2 CPs each. I won via the third tiebreaker.

Things learnt:

Two things saved me here. Forcing Haley's feat early and the order Daniel got me to activate my models while within the feat. I can't hope for the second one ever again so I'd better do the first one next time I face Haley.

Game 3, Into the Breach, vs Ian Wardle, Trollbloods

Facing off against one of the tournament organisers now. Ian only had one list with him; Calandra, two axers, Mulg and fennblades. I chose Gaspy3 and won the roll to go first. The photo below shows the aftermath of my first turn. Blood witches ran into the zone on the left as raiders moved towards the flag. Thanks to Mobility Nightmare was also front and centre threatening his prey, Mulg.

Ian gets the two axers into the zone and fennblades up on the right flank. Mulg was hanging towards the back, protecting Calandra who had cast Starcrossed. As I wanted to strike first I upkept Scything Touch on the witches and Ashen Veil on the raiders. The raiders killed a few of the fennblades but the real magic happened with the blood witches. They severely damaged one axer and took the other one off the table with some hot dice. Nightmare didn't want to end within Mulg's threat range so he moved back slightly and Gaspy hung back as well.

Ian's turn but the fennblades' vengeance failed to hit any of the raiders and as the blood witches were incorporeal only Calandra or Mulg could hurt them. So he buffed up the fennblades and they managed to kill a couple of the raiders. Mulg moved up as well, into the zone I believe and Starcrossed was cast again. Nightmare was fuelled up again and both spells upkept by Gaspy. The blood witches took down the last axer and did a little bit of damage to Mulg. Nightmare then went in and finished him off. The raiders did a little more damage to the fennblades but that was about it. 1 CP to me.

With all his beasts gone Calandra couldn't do much. First up a hero went up and with thresher he removed four witches and put some damage on Nightmare. The fennblades were buffed again and this time cleared out most of the raiders and Vociferon as well. Calandra then moved up and was unfortunately out of spell range of Gaspy. So she used all her fury killing a model or two with her spells.

See that not much was in the zone and Calandra was around four inches away from Nightmare I wanted to finish off the game fast. Fuelled up Nightmare and moved Gaspy into the zone, while casting Carnage. Cleared the zone then sent in Nightmare to kill Calandra, which he hid. 3 CPs and an assassination win.

Thing learnt:

I think this was a great example of moving things up too far on the first turn. Ian effectively gave me the axers as he had no reason to contest the zones. He was the one who could score first as the second player.

Game 4, Outflank, vs Dean Hubbocks, Legion of Everblight

Oh crap. Now I get to face my club mate in the finals. He had brought along both Vayls to the tournament but I had a feeling he would bring out Vayl2 to face me. I'm sure that he was counting on me bringing out Gaspy3 and he was right. Gaspy1's list wouldn't be able to handle two angelii and ravagores without loosing a lot on the way in. As you can see in the photo below, Dean's list was two angelius, two ravagores, spawning vessel, harrier and two shepards. He took first turn.

For Dean's first turn pretty much everything moved up in a nice symmetrical pattern. I cautiously sent the raiders to the left zone, with very little in there while the blood witches hung back outside the right zone. Gaspy and Nightmare hung out behind the centre wall.

Dean thought his best chance was to go for an assassination this turn. So the pot moved up but the first two acolytes failed to hit their brethren. Instead the harrier ran to be in-front of Gaspy and then Vayl moved up and started the assassination run. Icy Grip went on me first and an obliteration came in next but by the end of Vayl's activation I had only suffered 3-4 damage. The right hand ravagore came in next and hit me but only managed to set me on fire. The two angelii also tried their luck but they either missed or did no damage. Lucky me.

I camp as much as I dare on Gaspy, five focus this time instead of the four previously. Two focus went to Nightmare to deal with his preyed angelius. The raiders charged into the left ravagore and the left angelius. With power swell they destroyed the flying beast but the ravagore lived, fairly healthy. The blood witches went next and hurt the other angelius and killed the harrier. Nightmare finished off the angelius. Gaspy hid behind the wall and feated to attempt to stay safe.

Thanks to the spawning vessel Dean could try another assassination run. He upkept Icy Grip and out came a shredder from the pot. Vayl moved backwards and shot the shredder in the back. Well, the second shot hit. Then the Obliteration hit and the damage roll was excessive. Gaspy went down to about five health. The right hand ravagore then shot at gaspy but with the having to boost to hit and damage Gaspy healed slightly and Dean had to do something risky. He took three free strikes from the raiders and the third one rolled double six, knocking down the ravagore.

My turn again and I'm running really low on health. Thanks to Dean spending a little bit of fury I had ten focus to play with. Scything Touch went on the raiders, Nightmare had one or two and Gaspy camped six or seven. The blood witches and Nightmare dealt with the right hand ravagore whilst the raiders killed all of the acolytes and put a bit more damage on the left ravagore. I didn't, however, kill the pot. Big mistake there.

Dean goes for another assassination run. With Icy Grip upkept again and the pot able to produce another shredder all on its own he was well positioned to fire off another Obliteration. This time the boosted to hit spell missed. Dean's last ravagore runs the gauntlet of raiders again but another critical happens and that spells the end of his go.

Given that Vayl has had to cut for fury a couple of times now, she is running really low on health. Nightmare gets loaded up with focus, Mobility is cast to give extra threat range and Nightmare finishes Vayl off.

Things learnt:

Wow, Vayl2 is a right problem caster. Purification, Refuge and Admonition are major spells to get around. Gaspy3 does seem to have the tools to deal with her but it is a very tough match-up. I need to watch out for her at Blood & Oil.

So I won all my games and came out at the end the winner of the tournament. The organisers had also been counting up the positions of players throughout all of the tournaments held at Milton Keynes. Kinda like Formula 1 does. Winning this tournament pushed me past Daniel and into first place of the championship as well. A bit of an extra reward there. Thanks again to the organisers and I'll see everybody soon.

Southwest Steamroller Finals - Tournament Report

Time to write another tournament report. I've missed a couple of trips around the country but remembering details is slightly hard work so I'm just going for one of the most recent events.

A month or two back I went to a Southwest steamroller heat in Bath. Managed to come within the top 4 there and thus gain an invite to the Finals down in Cornwall. The event was put on by Mad For Miniatures with Matt Beer running the day and Martyn Jenkins being one of the main guys behind the whole thing. They had a lovely set-up down there with plenty of space for all the tables, enough to run a hardcore on the same day in fact. I took my Asphyxious the Hellbringer list and paired him with Warwitch Deneghra running Boomhowlers, Nyss Hunters, Satyxis Raiders and Mechanithralls as a second/third line.

Game 1, Outflank, vs Tyrant Swabs, Mercenaries

First up I was facing Tyrant Swabs and Magnus1. He had only brought down one list and thus I had an easy choice. Deneghra1 to deal with any sort of armour issues. Magnus had brought with him; Galleon, two renegades, freebooter, buccaneer, Wrong Eye & Snapjaw, bull snapper, Dougal MacNaile and Dirty Meg. I won the role and went first to get a favourable board position on the jacks.

My raiders went into the left zone and the boomhowlers to the right (every time they had +4 tough this game) with the Nyss in the centre for support. Tyrant Swabs used Magnus' feat first turn and got a renegade into each zone with the left one also having a freebooter as well. Galleon was centred and everything else was to the right of Galleon.

I don't want to feat yet though as Deneghra was still behind a load of models and it didn't quite seem the right turn. So my raiders charged into the jacks in the left zone and cleared them out with the help from Power Swell. Boomhowlers took a few shots at their renegade but did little, same with the Nyss. Magnus got Iron Aggression on the galleon and then sent Snapjaw into the right zone to kill a few of the boomhowlers and engage two of the Nyss. Wrong Eye was out of fury though as he had put Spiny Growth on Snapjaw and used submerge on himself. Magnus was then hit by the buccaneer and feigned death so I couldn't get an assassination off this turn.

No worries, that wasn't going to be the plan. I needed to get rid of the warbeasts and the best way was to kill Wrong Eye. So Deneghra moved up and feated to cover the galleon, Wrong Eye & Snapjaw and the remaining renegade. I also put Parasite on Snapjaw in case the plan to get rid of Wrong Eye failed. Unfortunately I messed up the order of activation slightly and sent in the Nyss to Snapjaw before I tried to kill Wrong Eye. Snapjaw lived and thus it became more important to kill his controller. Two Boomhowlers charged in and took him down. Then the Raiders charged the galleon and did some massive damage to him. As I had been hurting three jacks with the Raiders Magnus was running seriously low on health now. My feat blunted his counter attack though. The galleon killed a couple of the raiders and the buccaneer charged the forward most Boomhowlers but failed to damage. The renegade was engaged as well so could only knockdown one Boomhowler. Magnus ran himself behind some cover on the right so I couldn't get to him either.

However, Magnus was on about five health at this point so I got too excited and after Parasiting the galleon I sent in the raiders to finish off the game. They failed though as one did a massive strike with her whip and destroyed the colossal with two health left on Magnus. I should have sent in the Withershadow Combine first to disbind the upkeep spell and cause D3 damage. Oh, well. I attacked the renegade a little bit more at this point but he was a stubborn bugger and still contested the zone that Deneghra had moved into (Tempered Metal was helping in this regard). 1 CP to me.

Tyrant Swabs quickly ran Dougal MacNaile into the left zone to contest and continued to move around the cover on the right. He took a pot shot at a Boomhowler but not much else happened. My raiders dealt with MacNaile (tough was a slight worry) and then the renegade finally went down to concentrated fire. Deneghra camped all her focus and I passed the turn back. 4 CPs to me.

It was Dirty Meg's turn to run into the left zone and contest. The buccaneer again did his best to kill the Boomhowlers but failed and Magnus moved into the right zone. That was all Tyrant Swabs could really do but there was a slight mistake on his part. He thought I couldn't dominate with Magnus in there as well (Steamroller say when both casters would dominate only the active player scores) but Magnus wasn't dominating with all the troops in there as well. 6 CPs to me.

Things learnt:

I think the major turning point of this game was galleon having to run to the left zone to contest. Without that his guns would have destroyed a large part of the Nyss and done a load more damage to my army. I'll have to try to force that issue on more of my opponents in the future.

Game 2, Into the Breach, vs Terry Slade, Circle Orboros

Second game and things are going ok. Terry had Morvahna2 and Kaya2 to chose from but all I had eyes for was Morvahna. I thought the feat of Gaspy's and the blood witches able to remove from play, he would be the best choice. It worked and as I lost the roll I had my pick of a side. Terry's list was: two stalkers, gorax. skinwalkers & UA, tharn ravagers & WA, Druid blackclad solo, Stones & UA, two gallows groves. I lost the roll and picked the side that would put the zone in the open and the flag contained by woods.

Terry advanced very aggressively with his ravagers leading the way, skinwalkers behind and stalkers right in the back, in the stones though. My Raiders get into the left forest to contest the flag and blood witches run into the zone while going incorporeal. Erebus, Deathjack and Gaspy all take position behind a handy wall.

At this point I find out what Ravagers can do to infantry, especially when under the influence of Carnivore. They killed my front line of raiders quite handily and collected a couple of corpse tokens (which you can't do as Carnivore always removes from play, but I didn't realise, opps). Anyways, I sent in the blood witches and raiders to kill as much as they could and for the next turn or two we had a brawl in the centre of the table. All of our units where heavily damaged but Terry still had a feat in play.

The next photo shows what's been happening quite well. Erebus is in the centre doing what he can to help out my satyxis and Deathjack and Asphyxious are chilling in the back with Gaspy's feat activated. Unfortunately I did that too soon and only got a couple of souls from it. So it goes.

While my feat was up Morvahna also moved towards the flag and feated five of her troops back into the melee. At this point I saw a chance to spell assassinate and Vociferon had his route cleared by Deathjack, ogrun bokur and Ragman to run into range of Morvahna. Hex Blast happened first to remove Fog of War but the Boneshakers only got her down to 2-3 health. I messed up here as what I should have done is use Blood Boon to cast the Hex Blast (there was a skinwalker right in front of me) and boost the hit. Then cast as many Boneshakers as possible (with the remaining eight focus, poor feat turn). So it goes.

I'm now sat there with no focus and ready for the slaughter. A gallows grove was there ready to channel Sunder Spirits but Terry decides to kill Vociferon with Morvahna and score a control point while his stalkers finish off Erebus and his troops do mine in. At this point though I was going to have a fairly good chance at killing a large proportion of his troops with my mass of mechanithralls. Instead I go straight for the head of Morvahna. Deathjack clears the way of a ravager and Gaspy moves into reach range of Morvahna and a gallows grove. Swing at the tree so I can cast Carnage for free and then purchase seven attacks at Morvahna, needing sevens to get through the four fury. Not one of my attacks missed and thus I had two focus left at the end. Totaling up the army points killed we had both done in 35 points of stuff, but my score included the warbeasts. The attrition was not in my favour.

Things learnt:

Read the caster's cards. I've had this before but I am often too cocky it seems. Also I need to pick Asphyxious' feat turn better. I got two soul tokens from that, one from an upkeep and the second from the blackclad spraying down my troops. Not the best way to play him.

Game 3, Close Quarters, vs Alun Evans, Protectorate of Menoth

Third game and things are getting difficult. Alun Evans is my next opponent and he can choose between Thyra and her theme list or Severus1 with a Judicator, Blessing of Vengeance, two Vessels of Judgement, full zealots & UA and Eiryss2. Oh, and the choir. Deneghra has a load of squishy troops same as Gaspy, but he has the advantage of Erebus and Deathjack. So I picked him to deal with Severius and thus not be so threatened by Thyra's army. Alun picked Sevvy and the three huge bases. Hmmm, this will be interesting.

As I lost the roll to go first I picked the side with plenty of walls to advance behind, hopefully protecting me from Alun's shooting.

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Alun moved everything forwards with the zealots taking the right flank and everything else coming up the centre/left. With advanced deployment I managed to get a raider captain in range to shoot the monolith bearer and with a bit of luck he died stopping their turn of suffering no damage. The rest of the raiders took position in the forest with the sea witch hiding right at the back. Erebus ran to the far wall and was joined by some blood witches. Meanwhile Gaspy and Deathjack held hands behind a far safer centre wall.

The zealots moved up a bit more but even with fervour (the +2 hit and damage thingy) they couldn't hit the raiders directly. But the Vessels did a brilliant job on Erebus taking out his cortex easily and a few of the blood witches from the bounces. The judicator joined in as well and with some good deviations ten of the blood witches were dead, leaving only the blood hag. Bit of a bugger that. So I used Erebus as a speed bump, pushing him out in front of everything. The raiders went into the zealots killing most of them and hoping to survive thanks to Ashen Veil. Gaspy and Deathjack camped the wall again.

The vessels finished off Erebus and the blood hag whilst the judicator tried to burn the raiders but only getting one or two. Not much else happened from what I can recall so I gave the raiders Scything Touch and sent them against the right-most vessel of judgement. Thanks to that and their mini-feat the vessel was destroyed leaving Severius exposed, he had to move up due to killbox being active. Gaspy and the Deathjack moved up to the flag with the bokur in support. I was keeping Deathjack back so to have something to threaten the judicator. Gaspy also feated and thanks to the zealots dying Vociferon was sitting on three souls. 1 CP to me.

Alun did his turn in a really odd way and seemed to mess up his order of activation. Severius killed a couple of raiders with Ashes to Ashes but didn't roll that all important high number. Again, the judicator tried to kill some raiders as well but mostly failed only boosting one to hit giving me one soul. Serverius had feated though stopping me from refilling my focus.

With that I decided to end the game and sent in the raiders with Scything Touch still upkept. Four of them made it to a non-camping Severius and one to Eiryss. Eiryss died and the other raiders took care of Severius. 3 CPs by the end of the game.

Thing learnt:

Alun had designed a very good shooting list there. Erebus was killed handily (when DEF 18) and so were the blood witches. I need to think about lists that could handle that amount of high power shots that can kill four models a turn. Scary prospect.

Game 4, Incursion, vs Jun Chan, Skorne

I'm in the finals of the day. Light was fading fast and thus I'm unsure how good the photos here will turn out. Jun was commanding Skorne and had chosen to bring Xerxis and Hexeris1 to the party. Xerxis had medium bases overload, possibly even his theme list, while Hexeris had two units of gators, cannoneer, bronzeback and various other helpful models. Jun had locked himself into Hexeris on the way to the finals though and I picked Gaspy as I thought he would be the best to deal with the Skorne.

I went first and took the raiders up the left side of the middle and the blood witches the right side of the middle. Deathjack behind both units and Erebus left of centre. Jun sent the possies up the centre as well with Dirge of Mists active. Cannoneer was slightly left and the bronzeback slightly right. Unfortunately for Jun the right flag went away and I saw my chance to contain him outside the left flag.

Erebus was sent to base the flag on the left as the raiders charged into the gators (Hex Blast took care of Death March). I didn't use power swell on the charge and thus only killed one or two of the gators. Managed to pass three command checks though. The blood witches moved up in support and went incorporeal whilst Gaspy moved left in preparation.

Jun activated Hexeris' feat and this was fairly successful with most of the raiders dying to either gators or their sisters turning on them. This denied me a load of corpse tokens as well. Oh well. Jun's void spirit took care of a blood witch or two, made them fail a command check and he ran something to contest the left flag, I think it was a paingiver. My turn and it was a real mistake not to use the raider's power swell. I think I could have killed a couple more of the gator with that. Having little choice left Vociferon went into the Void Spirit and with the two souls on him boosted hit and damage to take him out of the game. The blood witches rallied but couldn't do much else. Deathjack moved to just behind the centre flag and Gaspy dominated the left flag as Erebus killed the paingiver. 2 CPs to me.

Jun sent in the gators to kill the last of my living troops letting the blood hag and one blood witch live though. The raider captain also bought it as she was a speed bump protecting the Deathjack. One gator managed to contest the left flag as the Bronzeback positioned to attack the Deathjack next turn. Hexeris hung back and put Death March back on one of the gators and that was about it. My ogrun took care of the contesting gator as the Mechanithralls came in on the gators doing some damage to them but nowhere near enough. Deathjack put Ashen Veil on himself to try to protect against the Bronzeback and Gaspy dominated the flag once again. 4 CPs to me.

Jun really was on the back foot with regards to the scenario now. He ran the cannoneer into contesting range and moved the gatormen around to get two of them within 4" of the left flag as well. This had the welcome side effect of clearing a route to the Deathjack and the Bronzeback killed him with a bit of fury to spare. At this point I had two mechanithralls, two fairly complete necrosurgeon units (with plenty of corpses), Gaspy, bokur and Erebus. So I loaded up Erebus with focus and sent in the bokur against the cannoneer to do a bit of damage. The necrosurgeons put down six mechanithralls in the vicinity of the left flag, ready to to some clearing up. Gaspy moved around the flag and still based it while killing one of the gators there. Carnage was cast thanks to blood boon and Erebus killed the cannoneer in part thanks to Scything Touch. This just left one contesting Gator and five mechanithralls use combo strike and that was the end of the game. 6 CPs to me. I was really losing the attrition match up though with Jun killing 36 points of my army vs his 20 points dead.

Things learnt:

When getting the alpha strike use all the tools to ensure it is a good one. I shouldn't have held back a turn for power swell as I didn't get to use it at all this game. Oh and try to avoid being jammed out of scenario. Not likely to happen at the moment with my lists but I'm planning on switching to Skorne soon and in my games down my local I have had it happen once or twice now.

That was a very good day. I won the Southwest steamroller finals and gained a fairly big trophy for my efforts. All my opponents were awesome and very good players, they had to be to get good placements at their heats. Thanks again to the organisers and the store who ran the event. I'll hopefully be back there sometime in the future, though it is a fairly long trip for the UK.