Lock and Load: Day 3

The third and final day of Lock & Load. It started with a trip down to the waterfront market with Mike and Josh to grab some breakfast at Lowells (recommended!). The tournaments were done for me, so I spent the day playing casual games in the Iron Arena and taking in a painting seminar.

First game was with Greg Lehmann from Montana. A very nice guy playing minions (Calaban). My 'jacks had him back on his heals...then he decided to go for a long-shot assassination on me needing three boosted rolls of 12 in order to succeed. It worked! Amazing and kind of sad at the same time. Haha.

Next game was with Chuck Betts. He was playing Vlad3 in a very similar configuration that I'm used to playing Elliot's list. Chuck exploded off the start line, grabbed the center of the map and won on scenario. Good game. Lots of attrition in this one.

Final game of the day was with Clifton Cline from Oklahoma. Another Trolls player. Where are all these guys coming from?!? Another fun game and a great cap to the end of the con.

All in all, a very great trip with a lot of excellent players and comrades. Late flight back to Edmonton...and then there was work...

'Til next time.

Lock and Load: Day 2

Woke up with a hangover. I think it helped. After a lacklustre performance on the gaming tables yesterday, I was much happier with the way things developed today. I was pre-registered into Hardcore, but that didn't start until 11:00 AM, so I had some practice time.

I went down to the Iron Arena for a pick-up game and ran into Eric Young from Baton Rouge. 

We were playing on one of the beautiful boards set up by Privateer. Eric had a Borka Troll army. I was practicing with my eFeora Hardcore list, and was doing well, but was undone in the game by a Long Rider who toughed and prevented a coup de grace from my Sanctifier. Little did I know that this would foreshadow exactly how my first round of Hardcore would turn out.

Heading into the tournament room, another fellow had stayed up all night to paint up a new Convergence army. Crazy!

I'll quickly outline my Hardcore list:

eFeora
Fire of Salvation
Blood of Martyrs
Sanctifier (bonded)
Avatar
(10) Flameguard with UA
(4) Choir
Covenant
Vassal
Rhoven and Guards

Usually, people run eFeora with a ranged army, and most often a bonded Judicator. However, given the quick Hardcore turns, I decided I didn't want to fuss with AOE deviations. Also, since the scenario forces close range action in the middle of the map, I went for a beatstick melee army that synergizes on friendly infantry deaths.

My first Hardcore opponent was Nathan Bosa. He brought out Terminus infantry spam, which is very brave considering the 7-minute time limit. I got some good attrition in, and at the end of Nathan's turn 2, his time ran out and he had Terminus in a vulnerable position. I loaded up Blood of Martyrs and beat Terminus into the ground with a charge and four 10/20 attacks...

...and he toughed. No problem, I had a fully loaded Sanctifier in range to deliver four more attacks. Tough through that! The only problem was a single Bane Thrall in the charge lane. Up comes eFeora to get rid of him...tough. Noooooooo. My turn ends, Terminus stands up and kills eFeora in two swings. Drat.

Second round was against Mike Bressers, who put eGoreshade out on the table. This was a quick game. On my turn two, Fire of Salvation takes his vengeance move five inches forward, kills a Bane Knight and clears his own charge lane to eGoreshade. three focus later, and a charge, and we had a dead Cryx caster.

Round three I was matched with Charles Klienwort from Iowa. I had actually played against Charles at GenCon last summer. We had a chuckle about that game, when he played Trolls at that time, and I was playing Cryx. Anyway, this time around, Charles was playing Retribution, and his caster was Vyros. I had an order of activation flub during my assassination run on Vyros and did not get Battle onto my Sanctifier. Undaunted, my bonded 'jack walked up to Vyros and started swinging. The attack rolls included two sets of snake-eye misses. Nooooooo! Vyros survived and then got the kill on eFeora. Well...that's why you play the games. You roll the dice to see what happens.

In the last round of Hardcore, I played Andrew Sibula from DC. He fielded a Khador Harkevich list with Conquest and lots of shooting 'jacks. I advanced under "No Shooting", then scrapped Conquest and Black Ivan before getting Blood of Martyrs onto Harkevich and sealing the game up with an assassination.

So, I finished Hardcore 2-2...but the three "successful" assassination runs with an unconventional eFeora list made me feel pretty good. I headed down to the Iron Arena to play the list some more.

I played a game with Chris Knapp from Oregon. We were on the really magnificent Cygnar Bridge table. Chris brought out an eSorcha/Conquest/Winterguard Deathstar list.

We played the Incursion (three flags) scenario, facing off across the causeway.

My army advances. Sweet terrain. I trampled Avatar into eSorcha and then whiffed two attacks needing 6s to hit. Yowza. Conquest moved up and killed Avatar (after also taking out my other character 'jacks). However, on the following turn, I still had the Sanctifier on two souls. eFeora cleared out some blocking Winterguard with a spray, Sanctifier walked up to eSorcha needing an 11 to hit. Boosted to hit and got the 11. Boosted the damage...dead Khador 'caster. This was a long, but very fun game.

Last game of the day was against Rob Sampson, also from Oregon. He had a 50-point Menoth list (first mirror match for me here). We played on a very nice waterfront harbor board. Again, the Incursion scenario.

Rob was playing pKreoss, but I had the Covenant in my list, so wasn't too worried about the knockdown feat. With eFeora's Escort up, I had the threat range advantage and got the alpha strike in. I took down two of Rob's 'jacks in the engagement turn, including my Avatar taking down his Avatar. I gained the middle of the board, and won on scenario. It was a good game, but unfortunately, Rob was back on his heals because he wasn't able to play to the strength of his feat.

Around midnight, I went out for dinner with Mike and Josh from the St. Albert crew and had some delicious Pad Thai. And a beer for good measure. Back to the hotel for a long, dark sleep. A good day.

Lock and Load: Day 1

OK, today was the first official day of Lock & Load. Plenty of action. The two main tournaments today were the first day of Masters (96 slots) and Iron Gauntlet (64 or 96 slots...not sure which). There was also a very busy Iron Arena area where games were going on all day.

But the story began early in the morning, as the line up formed for entry into the Privateer Press store. The line started at around 4:00 AM. I took this picture of Roy, Steve and Mike at about 6:00.

The hot items were all the new Convergence models that were being released.

Waiting for the Masters and Iron Gauntlet tournaments to start, the parade of Warmachine podcast celebrities began. Good to see all these guys out enjoying events. If you are into the Warmachine podcast scene...well, conventions like these are fodder that they get a lot of milage out of. Here are Crump and Phatasian from Muse on Minis.

The action was fast and furious in the tournament hall. Here, Tyler (from the Red Deer GROTS group) goes head-to-head with Jake van Meter...another Warmachine community celebrity. They are playing in the first round of the Iron Gauntlet tourney.

Some guy had stayed up all Thursday night with a buddy and managed to assemble and paint an entire force of new convergence models to play in Iron Gauntlet today. Nuts!

My tournament day was embarrassingly lacklustre. I went an anemic 1-3 in the Masters tourney. *cry* My first round opponent was Chad from the Muse on Minis crew. Whoops...bad news right out of the starting gate. Chad would wind up #2 in the tournament at the end of the day...

Chad Shonkwiler played eDoomshaper, and managed to get Mulg to take down my Judicator in one activation. Ouch. As you can see in the picture, he's quite happy the way it all turned out...as Mulg went on to assassinate my eFeora on the next turn.

My next opponent was Jaaron Moyer. He played an eLylith Legion list that assassinated my pSeverius on turn 2. Again...see how happy he is. I wasn't.

Next I played Adrian Trollip from Vancouver. He's not very happy in the photo...I can empathize. Losing sucks. Adrian was playing an eStriker Cygnar infantry brick that pSeverius tore apart with Ashes-to-Ashes and plenty of good work from my Errant Knights. The Avatar wound up assassinating eStriker in this one.

Last match of the day was with Matthew Bucher from Phoenix, AZ. Another Legion opponent...Matt played Rhyas and got plenty of value out of his swordsmen and spear-throwing Ogryn. After a long grinding game that saw plenty of attrition on both sides, Matt won on scenario points.

Although the tournament was no great shakes for me personally, the Alberta crew did great. Gord from Red Deer and Bryn from Calgary took two spots in the top eight, and advance to the final rounds on Sunday. Gord wound up taking 3rd place, while Bryn took  6th.

Here is Gord (on the right) with Trevor, the host of the Chain Attack podcast.

At the end of the day's games, the top eight players were selected to move onto the final rounds on Sunday. As you can see from this list, most of the game's factions were represented by the day's top players.

Later in the evening, I joined the St. Albert crew for pizza, beer and Jack Daniels at a great pizza joint in the market down near the waterfront. Lots of fun today. Looking forward to Hardcore tomorrow.

'Til next time.

Lock and Load: Day 0

Hello from Lock & Load 2013...downtown Seattle. This is Privateer Press' showcase home turf convention. I've been looking forward to going for several months now. Arrived this morning after an ungodly early flight. I was lucky, and my room was available for check in at 8:00 AM.

Normal badge holders can't register until tomorrow morning, so wandered around the Red Lion Hotel, and found pick-up games to play with some others who were looking to get some practice in today.

First off, some early pics of the Iron Arena open game area.

Cool new Convergence board.

Met Sean from Vancouver. We had a pick up game in the morning in the tournament area. I was looking to get time in with my eFeora lists. I'm most shaky with her play style. It showed. Three games with her today and lost all of them...yay.

Anyway, Sean turned out to be a nice guy. He played a gator army led by Rask and won on scenario.

In the afternoon I took a walk over to the Raygun Game Lounge. It's about 20 minutes from the hotel. A very cool place to play games. Nice big tables. Food. Beer. What more could you ask for. Several Warmachine players showed up, including a nice fellow from Norway by the name of Jonas.

He had a beautifully painted Skorne army, carried around in a very solid wooden crate. Everything was magnetized to minimize travel damage.

He didn't have any broken pieces as far as I could tell. Any case that can get an army to the West Coast from Oslo has to be pretty well built!

Jonas was a very good player. We ground our armies down, but when his Mammoth charged and took out my Judicator, the writing was on the wall.

I also had a pick-up game with Matt from Puget Sound. He played Trolls, and although I got ahead on attrition, he gained the center of the board first and won on scenario. Good game, and a tough opponent.

There are a whole slew of guys here from Alberta, so looking forward to catching up with them tomorrow when the main tournaments start. I did run into the usual suspects from Thunderground. On the left is Roy Kim, our store's owner and all around good guy.

Did manage to pick up some Warmachine geek swag today over at Raygun Games. These are the new dice sets from Q-Workshop.

I'll post again tomorrow and report on the first day of the Masters.

'Til next time.

pKreoss vs Barnabas

Long time followers of this blog should be asking at this point..."What's with all the battle reports? Where are the painting bits?" Apologies. I'm mid-way through a crazy project at work and have had little time to whip up something new on the hobby table. That will turn around at some point. But, in the mean time...

Elliot and I got together for our Tuesday night game at the club. This was a 50-point tilt between pKreoss and Bloody Barnabas Tier 4. Battle of the knock-down casters. Going in, it looked like the winner might be the caster to feat first. Kreoss should have a mild advantage due to 2" extra in control radius...but that's why you play...to find out.

We played "three flags". I'm Menoth on the right side of the table. Elliot is Minions, playing on the left side of the table. Terrain is forest and rocks. Flag stands can be seen down the middle of the board.

Elliot's starting line. This is On his right flank, closest to the camera, he is sending Wrong Eye, Snapjaw and a Croak Hunter to look after one flag. The rest of his army, Barnabas, Wrastler, Spitter, Horror, and two Gator units are going up the middle. Bog Trogs are ambushing.

My starting line. I have pKreoss, two Reckoners, a Vanquisher, a Redeemer, Hierophant, Flameguard with UA, Choir, two Vassals, a Mechanik, Rhupert, Daughters and Wracks. Mine is a shooting army with the pop & drop assassination threat, plus DEF 18 Daughters to infiltrate Elliot's backfield.

Tier benefit for Barnabas enables Elliot to go first.

Minion turn 1. Barnabas gets out Warpath and lays down some swamps. He will use swamps to negate my range combat advantage while closing.

Coming up my left flank is the Wrong Eye group. Croak is out front.

Menoth turn 1. On my left flank, I send the Daughters over to deal with Wrong Eye. They get Dirge of Mists from Rhupert and Defender's Ward from Kreoss. DEF 18.

In my center, I send everything else. Elliot's force is relatively slow, so I'm advancing as a messy cloud. I'll sort everyone out once the battle is engaged. Kreoss has Lamentation up.

Minion turn 2. The flag on my left flank (closest to the camera) disappears. Bog Trogs come in agains the Daughters and kill three. Then we remember that Daughters have Terror. We roll the Bog Trog morale check after they attack. They fail (head slap), and will remain fleeing for the remainder of the game. Although we did this incorrectly, and I should still have the full unit of Daughters out, we just left half the unit dead.

In the center, Barnabas gets all the heavies into swamps, but keeps Barnabas back to avoid shooting...and my feat, which is coming up. There is a screen of gators in the lead. I believe Elliot is worried about an alpha strike on his heavies.

Menoth turn 2. Kreoss moves up and feats. He catches everything in the center except for Barnabas. No problem. My strategy is to play for attrition, and this should give me a leg up. The Reckoners assault into the leading Gators. Flameguard charge into Gators, mini-feat and set a couple of guys on fire. The Vanquisher kills one Gator outright with his opening shot, and sets 5 other figures on fire. Follow-up ancillary attacks from the Vassals set more Gatormen on fire, while another goes down to a Reckoner shot.

This was one of those rare Menoth games when fire did a lot of work. And I mean a lot. Fire dice were on fire. Skipping ahead a little...ranged attacks and fire alone killed 6 of the 10 Gatormen on the table. Ouch.

Anyway, Elliot's heavies were relatively unscathed. But the Gators got the snot kicked out of them. I kept my 'jacks back to force Elliot to shake effects when it came around to his turn.

On my left, I got Daughters into contact with Wrong Eye. One landed an incredible hit that brought the Warlock down to 1 hit point.

Minions turn 3. Barnabas feats. All my stuff gets knocked down. However, as suspected I'm at an advantage in this knockdown exchange. Elliot's troops must get up and move into me, diminishing their hitting power by quite a bit. In the end, Elliot delivered a beat down to my Flameguard, but the 'jacks were relatively unscathed. Barnabas wants to Iron Flesh, but Lamentation is up, so he decided to camp his fury instead. Elliot knows he is on the slippery attrition slope and is worried I may break through his line and get to Barnabas on my next turn.

Menoth turn 3. I'm thinking the greatest assassination threat to Kreoss in the coming Minion turn might be the Croak Hunter, so I send a couple of Flameguard over to lock him down. I set him on fire.

The two remaining Daughters on the field finish off Wrong Eye. Snapjaw leaves the table.

In the center, I play purely for attrition. The Horror goes down, and Wrastler takes a ton of damage. His mind and spirit are out.

Minion turn 4. The Spitter frenzies. Barnabas goes first to heal the Wrastler. Wrastler throws the Vanquisher at Kreoss, doing respectable damage. Elliot is starting to run out of time on his Death Clock.

Menoth turn 4. More beat down. A Reckoner starts laying into Barnabas. Transfers take down the Spitter. Wrastler gets pushed to the edge of elimination by a Reckoner...then the Redeemer moves in and kills the Minion heavy with his mace.

Minion turn 5. Barnabas gets out Iron Flesh, disengages from melee, and scores two control points by running over to the far flag and dominating it.

Menoth turn 5. I'll have none of that. I load up the closest Reckoner and Assault/Charge into Barnabas. Boosted hit with the cannon, kill Barnabas...he toughs...follow up swing with the mace, failed tough check. Game over. Thanks for the game, Elliot. Fun as always.

Off to Lock and Load in two weeks, WhooHooooooo!

'Til next time.