måndag 24 augusti 2015

Iron Moot, Day 1 - Swedish Masters

Two weeks ago, Iron Moot, Swedens largest warmachine event was held in beautiful Gothenburg. I of course attended, and here follows my battle reports from the weekend.


Day 1 was Swedish Masters, 50 pts Masters event with ADR. I brought my tried and tested duo of Sorscha2 and Butcher3 to the tables:

Sorscha2
-Conquest (Bonded)
-Sylys Wyshnalyrr
Kovnik Joe
Gobber Tinker
Alexia2
Cylena & Nyss Hunters
-Koldun Kapitan Valachev
Winter Guard Infantry
-UA
-3x Rocketeers
Great Bears of Gallowswood

Butcher3
-Ruin
-Juggernaut
-Juggernaut
-War Dog
Koldun Lord
Eiryss2
Raluk Moorclaw
-Vanguard
Ragman
Gorman di Wulfe
Boomhowlers
Widowmakers


Game 1 vs. Gustaf Kullring (Gaspy2) - Fire Support

I don't remember what his other list was, but Gaspy2 is the obvious drop into Khador. I of course dropped Sorscha2.

His list (from memory):
Gaspy2
-Cankerworm
-Nightwretch
Gorman
Tartarus
Saxon Orrik
Bane Knights
Bane Thralls+UA
Blood Witches + UA
Bile Thralls min
Withershadow Combine

I was relieved to see no Helldiver, because without that the constant assassination-threat is lifted and he was probably going to feat to kill my Conquest.

I win the roll and choose to go first. I have Conquest centrally vs his Bane Thralls, Nyss to the left vs the Knights with a forest between them and Winter Guard on the right vs the Blood Witches/Thralls.

Round 1:
I run up as far as I can and is careful to position my infantry more than 19" away from the lead Bile Thrall. Conquest gets Boundless Charge and charge up to contest my flag. WGI gets Tough & Fearless and the Nyss get Iron Flesh.


He basically just runs at me, full steam ahead. The Blood Witches minifeat this turn as to not die from Winter Guard sprays. Gaspy puts Hellbound on himself.

Round 2:
I have some nice attrition plays that I go for, the Nyss CRA 4 Bane Knights to death and Zephyr out of retaliation-range. Alexia Hellfires a Blood Witch, claims her Soul and Breaks the unit! Super important for the coming rounds. Conquests main gun is short by 1/4 of an inch to reach the desired Bile Thrall, but still scatters and kills 2 of them. I also put up some Creeping Barrage templates to make it less tempting for any Bile Thrall purges, and shot a Knight dead. WGI Bob & Weave and recieve Courage of the Forefathers again. Most of my stuff is out of his threat, so I'm feeling pretty comfortable for the long game.



Gustaf starts his turn with failing to rally the Blood Witches, which is huge. 2 Knights get off charges on Nyss, but even with Curse he can't hit the Def 18. Gaspy moves up to put protecting clouds in front of his Blood Witches and Bane Thralls in the middle/right, and ends the turn on 1 camp in reach of much of my army, I smell an assassination.

Round 3:
Sorscha allocates 3 to Conquest. She then moves up and feats on Gaspy and Cyclones away. The Gobber Tinker runs up in front of Conquest, who then proceeds to Double Hand Throw him at Gaspy. It hits. I'm STR 18 vs Gaspys ARM 17, doubling damage and rolls an 8 for 9x2=18 damage and one-shotting gaspy with the throw attack!



My opponent was overextending his caster here and camping way too little to be in such a position. I could probably have killed him without the throw, putting CRAs, Rockets and Conquest shots into him under feat, but this felt way more satisfying! :)



Game 2 vs. Mikkel Ernst (Egern_WM) (Vlad2) - Outflank

Mikkel had Butcher3 and Vlad2 as his pairing and I felt comfortable with playing Sorscha2 into both of those. Mikkel picked Vlad2, probably for the off chance I would take Butcher3, but I explained to him afterwards that dropping B3 into his Vlad2 list probably was not a good idea, which he acknowledged.

Mikkels list:
Vlad2
-Spriggan
Eiryss2
Man-o-War Drakhun (with dismount)
Saxon Orrik
Ragman
Doom Reavers
Doom Reavers
Greylord Outriders min
Cylena & Nyss Hunters
-Koldun Kapitan Valachev
Kayazy Eliminators

Now, this game was quite intense, so I sadly forgot to take pictures. I will have to make good with words instead.

Having played a lot of Vlad2 myself, with similar lists, I knew pretty well what he can and can't do. He will have trouble with my Colossal if I can get rid of his Doom Reavers before he can feat them into Conquest, so staying out of threat in the early game will be important. I have just the tool for killing Doom Reavers though.

I take first turn and puts Conquest centrally, WGI to the left vs one unit of Doom Reavers and the Outriders and my Nyss to the right vs his Nyss, the other unit of Doom Reavers, Eiryss and the Drakhun. Spriggan and Eliminators deployed centrally.

Round 1:
This was one of the few games where I ran Conquest first turn, since I wanted to place him with more precision. Winter Guard and Nyss also ran up. Alexia is to the right with the Nyss.

Mikkel makes a measured advance, keeping his Doom Reavers back and well spread out. To the right they take up position on a hill bordering the zone. His Nyss runs up behind and to the right of the Doom Reavers on the hill and Ragman, the Spriggan and the Eliminators moves up centrally. His Outriders moves up next to the Doom Reavers to the left. The Drakhun runs up into the middle of the right zone to Counter-Charge anything I put into the zone.

Round 2:
This is the turn I either need to kill alot of Doom Reavers and/or leave Conquest out of threat from as many of them as possible. The Drakhuns placement complicates things though because if I don't put Conquest into the right zone he will be poised to clear it and go up to 2 CP. The Drakhun further complicates my contesting options, so I decide to actually run Alexia up and engage the Drakhun to prevent a Counter-Charge. I then try to advance Conquest into the zone, but a bit poor placement from my side sees him just out of it. He does kill a bunch of Doom Reavers and Nyss though, although sadly not Valachev or Cylena. I also decide to kill one of his Eliminators, since they also hit hard as nails under the feat. Killing one stops that to an extent.
My Nyss do CRAs, prioritizing his Doom Reavers to the right and I either wipe them out or leave 1 alive well out of range of Conquest.
The Winter Guard do their thing on the other flank and kill 4 Doom Reavers.

This is Mikkels feat turn as he is going to fall irreversibly behind on attrition if he doesn't feat. Vlad charges Alexia, but miss the charge and a bought attack. He feats and gets 5 models. The Drakhun, 3 Doom Reavers and an Outrider gets the good stuff.
The Drakhun proceeds to kill Alexia, but at least he is not feated, in the middle of my army.
His Nyss, with HoF kill some of mine, including Valachev and Eiryss kills Cylena, which is bad for my right flank. A couple of feated Doom Reavers charge in on the Winter Guard, but only manage to kill 1. They do engage a couple though. The Outriders also move in to spray, but have great diffuculty dealing with DEF 17 Winter Guard.
The Spriggan, out of reach of anything, positions for next turn and Ragman moves to contest the right zone and possibly get Dark Shroud onto Conquest the next round.
Mikkel has cleared the zone and goes up to 0-2.

Round 3:
I contemplate going for a throw assassination, but he is camping a few and I don't really have anything meaty to get into Vlad since Cylena died. I make the decision to keep the attrition going. Conquest gets 4 focus and Iron Flesh on the WGI is upkept.
My remaining Nyss do what they can, tying up Eiryss and contesting the right zone.
Conqeust goes into beast mode and scatter templates everywhere, Killing Cylena, Ragman and a good portion of his remaining Nyss.
On the left flank my Winter Guard gets For the Motherland and mops up the feated Doom Reavers and 2 of the Outriders, but fails to kill the feated one. They also try to position themselves between the Spriggan and the Conquest, but I fail a bit with their positioning. I do get a few of them into the right zone as well though.
Since it's becoming apparent that I'm winning the left Sorscha puts herself in a position to dominate next turn.

Mikkel goes for a risky play, but in the end it pays off for him. The Spriggan gets 3 focus and charges Conquest, bulldozing away my interfering Winter Guard and putting some big holes in him. I don't remember if anything else charged in on him as well, maybe some Nyss, but Vlad charges in himself and finishes the last 15 boxes. Eiryss dies to a freestrike I believe, and he tries to clear the zone once again, but he runs out of attacks.
I think the Drakhun kills a Nyss or something. 
Saxon runs into the left zone to contest and the remaining Outrider fails to do anything other than tying up Winter Guard in melee.

Round 4:
This is my feat turn since I have a Spriggan sitting Stationary right in front of my Great Bears. Sorscha feats and then charge the last Outrider, killing him and Cycloning further into the left zone to keep safe. The Winter Guard recieve For the Motherland and kills Saxon after some ifs and buts, but down he goes. I also get a bunch of them into the right zone and solidify my attrition advantage by wiping out his Nyss.
The Great Bears charge in and wreck the Spriggan.
I score 2, which leaves us at 2-2.

Mikkel only has Vlad and the Drakhun left, and Vlad starts things off by killing all the Great Bears. He then tries to run the Drakhun into the left zone for a contest, but since he has to run through the wreckmarkers of Conquest and Spriggan he is just out. I go to 4-2 on his turn and win on my next.

This was a really intense game against a good player trying to claw his way back from an unfavourable matchup. Sorscha held for the pressure this time though.

Well fought buddy, I look forward to facing you again! :)


Game 3 vs. Henrik Oskarsson (Karchev) - Close Quarters

I have only faced Henrik once before but I got the impression he is a solid player. Today he plays ADR: Vlad3 and Karchev. I saw alot of anti-B3 tech in his Vlad3 list, so i chose to go with Sorscha again, she should be fine into both. He surprises me by choosing Karchev. His list after ADR looks something like:

Karchev
-Behemoth
Malakov
-Ruin
Nyss
min Mechaniks
Greylord Ternion
Kayazy Eliminators
Widowmakers
Widowmaker Marksman
Saxon Orrik
+ some stuff I can't remember and in no way was important for how the game turned out

I win the roll and choose to go first, which might have been a mistake. Anyways, I have Conquest centrally, Winter Guard to the right and Nyss + Alexia to the left. I have a trench to my left inside the killbox and a big obstruction to the right. In the middle there is a wall and to my right on his side there is a hill.

He deploys Karchev and the Jacks centrally with Nyss to my left and the Widowmakers deploy onto the hill on my right.

Round 1:
I move up really aggressively with both my units first turn, both running 14" (WGI thanks to Desperate Pace) and Conquest get Boundless Charged and charges up as well. The Nyss gets Iron Flesh and Alexia make use of the trench on my left.

His Widowmakers starts off by killing some Winter Guard. Karchev casts Tow and drags Behemoth and Ruin with him, Ruin staying 2" behind him and Behemoth 2" infront trying to scatter some AOEs on the Nyss and getting 1 or 2. His Ternion puts up clouds on the Eliminators and Behemoth and they move to block LOS to Karchev and Ruin. His Nyss advances towards my Iron Fleshed Nyss.


Round 2:
Respecting the threat Behemoth poses I'm planning to put Sorscha in the trench to keep her safe. Terrible play as it turns out. Anyways, I go for some great attrition plays: I have a shot at his Cylena with a move+zephyr+shoot from Nyss and a 3-man CRA takes her down. Alexia also Hellfires a Nyss and ends the turn on 2 Souls. My Winter Guard recieves For the Motherland in an effort of killing his Widowmakers and Eliminators as well as launching some rockets into Malakov, but i do forget he has Sucker! and after he feeds the first one to a Mechanik I change plan. The sad part though is that I miss all sprays on the Eliminators, so the clouds stay up. I also roll poorly against the Widowmakers and leaves the Marksman on a few boxes and 2 from the unit alive.
Conquest desperatley tries to scatter his nipple guns onto the Eliminators and gets one, boost blast damage, but leave her on 1. Bummer. He then boosts the main gun on Behemoth and Crits, throwing him 2" backwards.

This is after my turn 2:


And this is Henriks turn 2:


Karchev, adding insult to injury by mooning you while Ruin kicks your teeth in!

Basically, Ruin threats 23" inches with Karchev. Thats a long friggin way. Now, in hindsight my positioning is awful. I could have easily prevented this by placing Sorscha behind Conquest. He could still have shot me with Behemoth, but really, that's pretty unavoidable and his odds on that assasination isn't that great anyway.

As it turned out Behemoth tripple-sixed his first hit roll on Sorscha in the trench, so that didn't really help :P Then Ruin kicked my teeth in.

I played this matchup terribly, but that is not to take anything away from Henrik. He went into this game knowing full well this was pretty much his only plan for the game, and I failed to both see it and appreciate how far Ruin actually threats with Tow in the picture. The fact that killbox was active in this scenario just makes Henriks case even more. 100% the right choice.

The defeat stung a fair bit and I zoned out a good 5 minutes after the game, but when I finally came to my senses I went to find my opponent again and thank him for the game and we had a little laugh about it.

Unfortunately this means I'm out of the running, but I soldierd on because I could still place fairly well.



Game 4 vs Mattias Bergström (Calandra, Evolutionary Elementalism) - Two Fronts

His list was something like this:
Calandra
-Moses
-3x Storm Trolls
-4x Slag Trolls
-1x Winter Troll
-2x Pyre Trolls
Runeshapers

apologies for no pictures this game either, but my dissapointment after the last game, combined with some tilting made me forget again. I really must work on this.

I win the roll again and choose to go first. My deployment is pretty simple with Conquest in the middle, Winter Guard to the right and Nyss to the left.

Round 1:
I run up and is careful to stay out of his threatranges to get the alpha next round. I'm feeling he has a pretty good assassination on me if I'm not careful, so I place Sorscha behind the obstruction in the middle. I also have a wall to the right flank just outside his zone.

He moves up with all of his trolls and activates the stone. He keeps centrally with most of them and the Runeshapers run up on my left.

Round 2:
I fuck up completely and killbox myslef. I specifically stated "Sorscha activates and measures the killbox" checking if I could go behind an obstruction to the left and still be in the killbox. The answer was no, but then I forgot to actually do anything with her and moved on activating other stuff.
Other than that I actually had a pretty good turn. Conquest crits a Slag into another Slag, and knocking out both of their spirits which is huge since they can't shake knockdown at that point, which means Conquest is safe. Thanks to that and my positioning he could only get a single Slag onto him next turn. I take some shots that don't do much with the Winter Guard and put 3 of them in his zone with Iron Flesh and Tough. The Nyss do some CRAs on the single Storm Troll on their flank and the Runeshapers. 0-2

He obviously goes for the scenario play on his turn, but thanks to some ungodly tough-rolls on my part it takes all of his trolls to clear his zone to dominate and kill my objective. This means Conquest is unscathed and is in a position to charge into the big mess of light trolls in the middle of the table.
0-4

Round 3:
I go into hyper-aggressive mode, if he clears any of the zones I'm done. I feat and Sorscha gets behind that wall to the right, just outside his zone. Conquest goes in and kills a Slag and a Pyre. Star-Crossed means I have to boost to hit, which sucks, but them is the breaks. He also makes sure to contest my zone. Alexia runs into his zone and I also cram as many Def 17 tough Winter Guard into it as I can as well. They do some damage to a Pyre/Storm but nothing major. The Nyss charge in this turn, but Star-Crossed means they miss all their attacks. I make sure to contest both zones with everything I got though, and with Conquest in the middle of his light beasts tying several of them up I hope I can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

He first try to clear his own zone, but after a couple of Storm Troll activations realize that he won't make it he goes for attrition instead. Calandra moves out of her zone and feats. 2 Slags kills almost half of Conquest and he kills some Nyss and Winter Guard. He also kills Alexia with a Pyre in melee.

Round 4:
All I can do is grind on and keep contesting. Conquest keeps whacking light trolls, I think he kills 1 this turn. The Nyss kill the Storm Troll on their flank after some good rolls and the Winter Guard I believe kills one of the Storm Trolls as well. I keep the zones hotly contested.

He gets Conquest down to 2 Boxes I belive, but fails to finish him off, even charging some Stone dudes into him, and it's only now that I realise that I have forgotten to use my Bond the entire game. That would have helped alot in hitting under Star-Crossed. This is very unlike me and just shows how much on tilt I were.

Round 5:
I've had enough of this! Calandra is camping 1 with Bullet Dodger up, but I allocate 4 to Conquest, the Gobber repairs him, he Aims and Shoots Calandra 3 times, hit all 3 even under Star-Crossed and then Kovnik Joe finishes her off! For the Motherland!

What a game... I though I was done for, but somehow, don't ask me how, I won in the end. After thinking about it I came to the conclusion it was a clever trap designed by me to get my opponent to focus on the scenario rather than killing my models.

In all seriousness his second turn was the most important in this game. Instead of beating up Conquest a bit and focusing on attrition he went for the scenario and that cost him in the end. 100% the right play, but still, this allowed me to get Conquest on full health stuck in and he was already some Slags down, which means he will have trouble dealing with him. 0-4 is not a great position for me to be in, obviously, but when I could contest the zones as heavily as I did and at the same time keep alot of his stuff engaged with Conquest I actually managed to ride out the storm.


Game 5 vs. Stefan Benediktsson (Scaverous) - Incursion

I draw my good buddy and sparring partner Stefan in the last game. He is, as usual, locked into Scaverous the last round. If you have paid attention you'll know I'm also locked in - to Butcher3..

This is a brutally bad matchup for Butcher and 3 Khador jacks and I will not write a real battle report on it.

Basically what happened is I ran up, he charged in his Bane Riders, I kill them and then he kills Butcher with Scaverous feat.

I hoped not to face Stefan, since it's a bit sad that we can't both do well, and also that Scaverous list gives me fits. It's uneblieveably good into Khador.


Anyway, that wraps up a pretty meh first day for me personally, going 3-2. Some serious mistakes made sees me ending up on 17th place out of  63 players. I had hoped for better, but I placed like I played. All I could do was hoping to reap vengeance on day 2 in the Iron Gauntlet Qualifier!

Day 2 Battle Reports coming soon