WarGamesCon Hardcore Game 2--eHaley vs Harbinger

And the slow grind to cover my WGC (which is now TexasGamesCon?) games continues....

After winning Round 1, I advanced and played a local guy using Harbinger.  I don't have a really clear memory of his list, but I'll see what I can do...

Harbinger of Menoth
-Avatar of Menoth
-Templar
-Reckoner
Covenant of Menoth
Exemplar Errants (full)
-UA
Choir of Menoth
Vassal (or 2?)
Gorman di Wulfe
Rhupert Carvolo... and a bunch of other stuff...

It's been like a week (and I've been crazy busy), but as I remember it, the game came down to a few things:

-The Choir making all of his jacks immune to non-magical shooting really hosed my list's ranged advantage (On the Stormwalls, anyway)
-None of my infantry clearing stuff could kill Errants.
-I was trying to work on spreading damage around (mostly because of deployment, I couldn't concentrate ALL of the offensive output on a single model). I think each of his jacks had like 5 points left on them... As I'm typing this out, I'm realizing how dumb that was.
-No Spells on the Covenant was pretty harsh, too.  It forced Haley to walk out of the Killbox to be able to throw her Temporal Acceleration on one of the Stormwalls, but was that really worth the 5pts damage?
-Harbie's feat would have one-shotted my ATGMs and B13th, and would have done 2D6 straight damage to Haley, which was pretty rough.

Overall it was a great game, but a tough matchup for sure!  I'll have to practice this one!

WarGamesCon Hardcore Game 1--eHaley vs Vlad3

So, first game of WGC Hardcore went pretty well!  It's been a few days but I'll try and give the best account I can of what happened (but some details are probably off).

I saw I was paired vs Khador and was PUMPED to have covering fire be ultra-useful against a high-DEF infantry horde.  I arrived at the table to see a Vlad3 Cav list with a Conquest. Damn.  Prior to this game, I'd played 2 practice games with my Hardcore list, so I felt pretty nervous going in.

I ran:

eHaley

-Stormwall & Pods (Bonded)

-Stormwall & Pods

-Squire
Journeyman Warcaster

Arcane Tempest Gun Mages

-Arcane Tempest Gun Mage Officer

Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Force

He Ran (I think?) :

Vlad3

-Conquest

Full Uhlans

Full Uhlans

Markov

Man O War Drakhun

I won the roll and opted to go second.

Turn One, my opponent ran things up, and cast Windwall to make a TON of his stuff un-shootable.  That's bad for me.  One Uhlan unit was significantly further to my right than the other, going toward my B13th.

My Turn one, I advanced and got into a pretty good position, but I think that's about it.

His turn 2, more advancing, the Uhlans get closer to the B13th,  the blob of Uhlans in front, Vlad in the middle, and one of the solos in the back all under Wind Wall advance further, unshootably. Conquest wanders into range of my bonded Stormwall.

On my Turn, I mark the squire for an extra focus, I give 3 Focus to the Bonded Stormwall (on my left, well within range of Conquest), Keep 3 on Haley, and give 3 to the other Stormwall.  The Gun Mages activate first and run to Jam the Uhlans in the middle of the board (to the right of Conquest).  Haley activates and feats, catching most of his army, and casts Temporal Acceleration on the bonded Stormwall, who then activates and advances (at speed 9!) into Conquest.  He swings a few times and destroys the Collossal.  My second Stormwall advances and shoots the Drakhun to death, and drops a pod in the way of Uhlans, kills a man in the second Uhlan unit (to my right) with his Metal Storm, etc.  the B13th Shoot and kill 1 Uhlan.

His turn, he sort of flounders through my feat, an Uhlan gets near The Bonded Stormwall.

My Turn, I kill the Uhlan and shoot some more things and leave Haley a little open, so I run the journeyman and place a pod in the way.

During my opponent's turn, Vlad charges the Journeyman, using his impact attack on the pod, and 2 attacks on the Journeyman.  Reaching Haley with sidestep, he misses some attacks and fails to assassinate.

My next turn, I allocate 2 focus to each Stormwall and Time Bomb Vlad, then the first Stormwall finishes him off with PS20 fists.

Win

What did I learn?  

I think I had Haley reasonably well protected, but that game could have ended WAY differently if some rolls went the other way.  I think I need to get more offensive output out of the second Stormwall, but I'm not really sure what he's supposed to be doing when the first one charges something?  The list presented a weird situation where a lot of his models were unshootable (as I had no Aiyana/Holt to give them Magic Weapons.  Curses.

Game 6--pStryker vs 3Makeda (50pts)

Finally made it back out to Dragon's Lair to get a game in--only had time for 1 though because of the damn drive both ways and class in the morning, no matter though, got some experience out of it.

Played Incursion, a personal favorite of mine:

I played the same pStryker List I've been running, my opponent played something like:

3Makeda
-Molik Karn
-Bronzeback
-Gladiator
-Krea
Min Incendiarii
Min Nihilators
Max Paingivers
Willbreaker
Agonizer

I got the first turn, Deployed Stormwall Centrally with Stormblades and the Lancer on the Left, and Everything else on the Right.  My opponent deployed his Nihilators opposide my SBs, and the Incendiarii across from my Gunmages. Shit.

Turn one stuff ran.

Turn two, I'm feasibly in threat range of a lot of his stuff, which gives me a decent chance to deal with his superiority in numbers.  I allocate some focus, and run the Lancer up 10" away from the Agonizer (who had 3Makeda and a shield guard, as well as a few Nihilators next to it)  and Shot an Earthquake at it and feated.

It's at this point that I manage to miss the fact that I've knocked Makeda down, with no fury, and only one shieldguard.

Moving forward, I decide that maybe an assault with the stormblades would clear the nihilators out and even the numbers some... That works-ish, and kills a couple, but puts my Stormblades a little too far up with nothing to really protect them.  The GunMages shoot ineffectively at the Incendiarii, and the Cyclone pumps like 5 metal storm shots into them, killing 1.  Stormwall advances and takes 2 shots at the Bronzeback--who is regrettably in the krea bubble--Putting him at DEF14, or 8 to hit.  With 2 focus, I boost to hit the first shot and do no damage, and I think I miss the second shot?  Lame, yo.  I drop a pod in between the BB and SW so that something is in between the two (I think I was also basically out of charge range, but we'll see)

With my feat up Everything's at a lot of armor, so I feel not WHOLLY terrible about having a bunch of stuff more or less in the open.

Well, I should have been more scared.  This is the turn where things took a turn for the worse.  Makeda and Co. stand up-- The Nihilators stand up and advance, some take some swings and I think kill 1 stormblade?  Makeda feats and charges and kills a whole BUNCH of stuff. The Incendiarii Drop some well-placed fire on my GunMages, killing 2.   The Bronzeback moves over and is about to put Beatback on Karn when my opponent realized that it would replace Rush that Makeda put on him.  The Krea Charges and Kills one GunMage.  Karn basically charges and sidestep-beatbacks his way through what's left of my left flank, and then he and Makeda fatewalker over to the left objective, and my opponent scores 2 points.

So, my turn begins with fire checks on all but 2 of the gun mages, and all of those die, so the 2 remaining ATGMS take a command check and fail spectacularly, so my Right Flank collapses as well.  This basically leaves me with:  the Stormblades UA, Rhupert, the Lancer, and Jr on my Left, and a Cyclone on my right, with Stormwall, Stryker, and a Squire in the middle.  I try to go for an Earthquake on Karn, but I miss (I would have missed anyway, because he would have made me re-roll) and it deviates onto one of Makeda's shield guards and 2 Nihilators.  I decide that with the revelation of the re-roll, operation: 1-round Karn isn't going to pan out, so I switch focus to reclaiming the middle objective and contesting the left one.  My stormblades assault the shield guards.  My Banner one-shots the knocked down one, and the officer nearly kills the other. The Lancer pokes a nihilator and knocks him down with tough.  The Cyclone tries to shoot stuff but doesn't do much, and Stormwall tries to shoot up the gladiator, but alas, no luck.  He does, however, drop a pod within 4" of the far flag to contest.

My opponent's turn, nihilators and shieldguards basically kill my Stormblades UA (after a few tough rolls by my officer, thanks to Rhupert).  Makeda charges the Lancer and kills it after a while, putting SW in Vortex of Destruction.  The Gladiator charges it and kills it all by himself.  the bronzeback moves up next to it.  Shiiiit.  Incendiarii do a CRA on Stryker for a few points and kill the squire.  Molik Beats a few things up?  Makeda Fatewalkers away.

My turn, I've basically got the Cyclone and Stryker.  I have a half-baked scheme to put snipe on him and try to shoot makeda up, but Orin Midwinter's anti-magic bubble screws things up, so I basically get wildly out of place.

Next turn, the gladiator puts Rush on the Bronzeback, which charges through what used to be stormwall and beats Stryker to death.  On the plus side, Molik Karn missed 6 attacks on him first.

Result: Loss

So, what did I learn?  I'm not really sure.  I feel like some of that came down to bad matchups due to deployment... Once again, I see that Stormblades vs standard infantry is a bad way to go, and ATGM vs heavy infantry is also bad.  I had a few bad rolls with stormwall, but I really need to be getting better use out of his ranged game.

Definitely will have to keep in mind that Molik Karn can screw around with making you re-roll attacks that hit him.

Definitely have to watch out for giving 3Makeda ANY infantry to chew on, that feat turn could have been really nasty. (that being said, it was).

One thing to keep in mind would be to, you know, notice when I've knocked down my opponent's warlock with NO FURY.  I'll have nightmares about that one for a while.

I wouldn't say I feel discouraged, but I don't think I did a particularly good job there.

Game 5--pStryker vs Ossyan 50pts (Dragon's Lair Steamroller Round 3)

Alright, had some wifi trouble for a few days, so I've managed to forget some of the particulars of the last game, but here goes nothing:

Round Three ended up being my most fun game (I'd become somewhat more comfortable with rules and such).  The round was to be the Process of Elimination scenario:

My opponent ran something like:

Ossyan

-Hypnos

-Banshee

2x Stormfall Archers

Full Houseguard Helberdiers w/ UA

Full Mage Hunter Strikeforce w/ UA

Aiyana & Holt

eEiryss

Arcanist

I won the roll, and opted to go second, to try and take advantage of deployment (after my first game. Gah.)

I placed Stormwall basically centrally.  He deployed With his battlegroup mainly to my left-center, with Halbs on my right, and a unit of Stormfalls on either side.  I countered by placing my Stormblades vs the battlegroup on the left, and ATGM vs the Halbs.  Then he AD'd his MHSF in front of the battlegroup, opposite the  Stormblades.  Shit.

Turn one, he advanced, and put Quicken up on the Halbs (Def 15 HH's.  Shit.)  

My Turn one, I ran stuff--  put down some covering fire, but not far enough up to really be an issue (although with as fast as Quickened Halberdiers move, it might have been a good idea).  Stormwall advanced and Covering fired as well.  Stormwall got Arcane Shield, Gunmages got Snipe.

Turn two more stuff moved up (sort of constrained by my covering fire) Ossyan, Hypnos, and the MHSF shot up my lancer on a hill some, which pretty much neutered him.  Stormfalls threw AOEs, etc, at my dudes, and killed 1-2 ATGMs.

My turn two, my ATGMs tried to shoot up the Halberdiers, but just can't quite hit DEF 15, and with no way to strip the upkeep, there's not much other than covering fire I can use to keep them from claiming the Right Zone.   The Stormblades assault the Banshee, and on like 6 rolls at Dice-5 I manage to do like 7 damage?  Weak. Weak-weak-weak.  So, with the Stormblades hanging out in the wind, Stormwall had 3 FOC and used covering fire to try and screen the SB's some, and took 2 boosted shots at the Left objective, failing to kill it by 4 boxes.  The Lancer stays on a hill, I guess waiting for an opportune Earthquake moment?  Now that I'm thinking about it, I should have charged the objective, and bought attacks-- I would have been rolling straight dice and auto-hitting, which would have basically guaranteed me a CP, and would have put me further up the board when Stryker feated that turn.

My opponent was pretty bottled up by Covering Fire, and all of my stuff was ARM ridiculous.  He took some shots and killed some Stormblades and ATGMs, including the UA which made the Cyclone autonomous again. Hypnos shot Stormwall Overall, didn't lose any majorly important pieces, but some stuff I'd rather have kept around.  The Stormfalls proved effective again.

From here it's pretty fuzzy.    Stormwall advanced and killed the objective (1 CP! Hooray!), and I covering fired some more, and maybe the stormbades did some stuff?  I still really had no way to deal with Stealth, DEF 14 Mage Hunters en masse opposing Stormwall. I think my stuff pretty much struggled here.  The ATGM stood still and fired at the Halberdiers, but still didn't do a GREAT job at wiping them out.  

My Opponent's turn, he feated and just wiped Stormwall off the board with Stormfall Archers and a few Mage Hunters.  He did some significant damage elsewhere, but WOW.

Not too long after this, round time was called-- per the SR2013 Document, it's a mutual loss, but I conceded the victory to my opponent because I'm not a dick, and he pretty much had me.

Result: Loss

So, I think a few things went wrong here.  I should have DEFINITELY played more aggressive with Stormwall early, going into the Feat-- That would have given me a good chance to be further up the board to take advantage of him in Melee and drop pods for more precision piece removal.    My list had no way to offensively (or defensively, actually) strip upkeeps, so Quickened Halberdiers were a BIG problem for my anti-infantry guys.  My Opponent deployed the Mage Hunters REALLY well, on a side of the board with nothing to threaten them early on.  

A few things went against me, my dice rolls were just crap.  Failing to kill the objective was an error in judgment mainly, but I'll be having nightmares about the failed Stormblade Assault for months.  Going in at -5 when there's no way to actually get into Melee to seal the deal was risky, but I didn't think it was THAT risky.  

I think the game really came down to my opponent's ability to play a strong ranged game (with Stormfalls, his Battlegroup, and the MHSF) to really attrition me while I was mainly busy giggling about how much covering fire I was putting down on the table.  In all, I think I was a little too conservative in my play.  More aggression, and more abuse of the Stormwall's turn of ARM 27 seems like it would be the way to go.

Game 3--pStryker vs eKaya 50pts (Dragon's Lair Steamroller Round 1)

Alright, so game 3 with Stryker, my first in a competitive setting.  Got paired against a really nice Circle player!  Round one was the Into the Breach Scenario

My Opponent ran something like:
eKaya
-Ghetorix
-Pureblood
-Stalker
Full Skinwalkers
Full Wolves + UA
Stones + UA

I ran the list I'd discussed previously:
pStryker
-Stormwall & Pods
-Lancer
-Squire
Stormblades + UA + 2 WA's
Arcane Tempest Gunmages + UA
-Cyclone
Rhupert Carvolo, Piper of Ord

So, my opponent won first turn.  I placed Stormwall pretty centrally. She deployed her Wolves and a Pureblood on my left (Going for the Zone) and the Skinwalkers, Ghetorix and the Stalker more to my right (Going for the Flag).   Seeing all this, I was essentially very foolish and put my Stormblades vs the Wolves, and ATGM vs the Skinwalkers, which is, obviously, the exact opposite of what I should have done.

So Turn one, everybody pretty much ran. Stormwall gets Arcane Shield, Stormblades get Snipe. Stormwall and the Cyclone dropped some Covering fire templates.  Turn two she moved a bunch of Wolves and the Pureblood into the zone, and some Skinwalkers up toward the flag, and the stones teleport, getting two in B2B with the flag.

My turn two takes for damn ever. Stormwall moves up and tries to drop some Covering Fire, and Shoot one of the skinwalkers (who he does a point of damage to). The Gunmages move up and shoot at the Stones, killing the Stonekeeper. (I'd hoped this would leave them out of formation, but alas. The Cyclone dropped some Covering Fire as well.

I give the Stormblades Dirge of Mists (which I forgot about), and they assault.  The idea was to try and assault the pureblood behind a couple of wolves, but because it had Stealth from Kaya's Shadow Pack, I would have only gotten like two shots on it.  So, they assaulted and killed like 3-4 Wolves.  So at the end of my turn two, I had moved up pretty far, leaving myself a little exposed. My memory here gets a little fuzzy.

At the end of my turn, my Opponent got a Control Point for controlling the flag (5 CP's to win).  She charged my Lancer with the Stalker and left it with one box.  The Wolves minifeated and killed a few Stormblades. Ghetorix moved up getting ready to charge Stormwall.  The Skinwalkers move up and surround the flag.  My Oponent gets another CP (2/5)

My turn, I have Stormwall within charge range of either the Stalker (DEF 14) or Ghetorix (DEF 16 w/ Forced Evolution).  So, either one I would be hard for me to hit with my wimpy MAT 6.  What I should have done was Allocate 3 to Stormwall, have Stryker cast Earthquake at my Lancer  (although his DEF would also have been pretty high at a 15, but with a boost and a re-roll from the Squire, I feel OK about it) to knock down a few wolves and the Stalker, and Pop Feat.  And then Charge it and kill it with Stormwall (although Stormblades may have been able to accomplish this by themselves if the Stalker was KD'd).  That would have put my Opponent down 1 heavy, with my ARM 27 Colossal right on her Doorstep.

What I actually did was Allocate 3 to Stormwall, move up with Stryker and cast Earthquake on one of the Skinwalkers who looked like he was close enough to Ghetorix, but was woefully just outside the 5" AOE.  With Stryker exposed, and neither Warpwolf knocked down, I balked and decided to Walk up around Stryker (did I mention I put Stryker in the way?) and Power Strike the Stalker-- I managed to hit and boost damage to knock some points off and Slam him a few inches away, which killed 2 Wolves and knocked him down.   My Stormblades did something uninteresting... I think they killed some wolves?  The Gunmages did pretty OK.  Two shot thunderbolts at Ghetorix.  One missed, the other pushed him back 3". The rest moved up and decided to Crit Brutal into the skinwalkers, which removed a 1-2 and put damage on some.  The Cyclone decided to actually use the metal storms and got 5 shots which got the unit below 50% and killed a Stone.    This all being said, I totally forgot to feat, so poor Stormwall was Hung out to dry waiting for Ghetorix's inevitable charge.

All I remember about the next turn is that Ghetorix Charged Stormwall and beat him up pretty bad.  My final turn, I had 1 minute left on my Death Clock, so I allocated to Stormwall, Decided to do a fully boosted powerstrike and knocked him back 3" and did some damage, before Clocking myself.

Result: Loss
 I guess Technically by the clock, but my sloppy play wasn't doing me any favors here.  I need to get a LOT more practice to try and knock some of the rust off.

As far as what I can take away from this game, I think there were some pretty big mistakes that were made-- essentially deploying backwards (ATGM vs Medium Infantry and Beasts with Stormblades vs Infantry).  The turn 3 Debacle where I should have Charged the stalker didn't help either.

This was the first of a couple of games where I ended up forgetting my damn feat.  So, in short.  Be more aggressive, Jam with the feat (ARM 27 SW, ARM 20 SB's).