Might not have been the best choice.
Hardcore tournaments have a 7 minute turn, with one 3 minute extension available to each player. Most hardcore lists are light on models, but my favorite caster is an infantry supporter, so I felt I needed at least two full units.
I tried several builds in preparation, but the final list was:
Constance Blaize
Gallant
Ol' Rowdy
Squire
Journeyman Warcaster
Harlan Versh, Upkeep Hater
Gorman di Wulfe, Heavy Staller
Archduck Alain Runewood, Lord of Troopspam
Black 13th Gun Mage Toolbox
Precursor Knights with UA
Cylena and her Nyss Hunters with Jonas
The Nyss hunters are hunters who are also Nyss, and not hunters who hunt Nyss, btw.
I went 3 and 3 overall. I was happy with that. I got some victories in my first (50 pt) Hardcore tournament, and I'll remember two of the games for some time to come.
Game one was against Zaal. I'd forgotten to pack Jonas in my bag, leaving him at the hotel. Chuck (Bulldog) loaned me his for round 2 and beyond (provided I didn't use Murdoch's abilities should we play against each other) so the Nyss were mercs in this first game.
Shit happens. It's my fault. My opponent was super gracious about it. He even asked his friend nearby if the dude had a Jonas in his bag (he didn't).
My opponent played Zaal
Titan Gladiator
Titan Bronzeback
Basilisk Krea
Marketh
Two Ancestral Guardians
Hakaar, the Beast with two swords
Full Nihilators
Two minimum Immortals units
Two extoller soulwards (I think? The laser eye guys like Zaal)
I lost the roll to go first and Zaal came forward as fast as statues can run.
I moved up a bit and threatened little. He killed a few models with last stand Nihilators but I didn't give him much.
My Nyss tied up a unit of Immortals and the Nihilators killed most of them with berserk attacks. The immortals and Nyss wound up fighting for his control zone for the rest of the game. I killed an AG with Gallant and the Kovass popped out. Rowdy killed Hakaar the same turn.
The Kovass went for Blaize but Gallant has a magic sword (which my opponent hadn't known about). The Gladiator killed Rowdy. The Bronzeback set up to counyrrcharge. I blocked off the BB and set the PKs into the Gladiator. Blaize finished it off with Flank. Now I was in my zone. Gorman blinded the BB.
Zaal spent most of his fury trying to kill my stuff but left himself at zero about 5 inches from Blaize. I have her pathfinder, ran a PK into flank, and ended it. Bb might have been able to beat back into Blaize, but Blind hurts a lot.
It was a good game and my opponent was awesome.
Game MVP: Blaize. Girl gets it done.
Game 2 I played against one of the local TOs playing
EKruger
Feral Warpwolf
Wold Guardian
Ghetorix
Gorax
Two Trees
Lots of Stones
The Spirit of Cannibalism
Blackclad
Gatormans
I knew I needed to feat after Kruger and try to re-jam into the zones to stay in it. Kruger went first (yuck) as I lost the die roll again.
He had threat range to everything interesting from the gate. I advanced cautiously but still moved enough that Kruger's feat wouldn't ruin me (he hadn't charged on one, or it would have been even worse) while offering morsels to the Cannibal and the gators.
Kruger feated and killed Gallant with Ghetorix. The gators jammed the Nyss. The Cannibal killed some PKs.
The Nyss and black 13th managed to hold a flank against the gators, while the PKs and my jacks dealt with the Lord. Blaize herself killed the lord of the feast and feated.
My opponent cleared a landing spot near Blaize and dropped a Wold Guardian nearby. She lived by 6 boxes. I had no where to run. I killed the construct with Rowdy and clouded spellwarded dudes around Constance. He managed to kill enough to land the Feral in an finished her off. If my PK chaplain had kille the Blackclad like he was supposed to this would have been different. Ah well, I felt I'd played well I. A difficult match. I was actually up on AP even after losing.
Game 3 was an awesome match against an awesome opponent. He said that since he'd lost second round his plan was to get a Zombie Reznik kill.
He was playing Reznik's tier list from NQ. I'm not too familiar with it, but I'm pretty sure he had
Reznik
Vanquisher
Crusader
Guardian
Choir
Sunburst Crew
2 Vessel of Judgment
2 Vassals or mechanics or something. . Not sure about the support staff he got.
Unit of steelhead halbardiers with priest.
Kell Baillock
Of course I lost the roll to go first and went second. Those Battle Engines are brutal. He moved up, I responded. He killed 3 PKs with a Vessel and hurt Gallant. I jammed Nyss all up in his business, wrecking steelheads like crazy but not really doing the good work. He was tabling me but I set up Gallant to take down the Guardian. He moved Reznik himself up to kill Gallant and that left me little in the way of options.
I had a Journeyman in charge distance of Reznik. Dropped arc shield, had Constance cast transference out of the way, move so JR could get in the CTRL, had Gorman autodeviate Black Oil into Reznik, and JR got 4 boosted 10s on Blind Reznik camping 2. So 10/19. I had chipped him a bit with hand cannons and the like but he was in good shape still. Jr -just- killed Jim.
At which point Reznik went all zombie with EoD up and got to Constance. He would have hit, but alas he was Blind and rolled a 6 on 3 dice (he was due for that, those damn Vessels hit for like 30 with every direct hit), failing to connect.
Game MVP: Jr, who got to live the dream.
Game four was against one of the podcast guys from Muse on Minis. He was playing
Feora2
Vanquisher
Vanquisher
Templar (bonded)
Avatar
Bastions
2 vassals
Book
2? Vassal mechanics
Min (?) choir
Wracks I think
I lost the die roll to go first of course. We advanced. I dug the Nyss in and was super surprised that he didn't just set a half-dozen of them on fire with the Vanquishers. His deviations were Mweh.
I got the charge off into the Bastions but did not pop the PK minifeat. The Nyss got into the Avatar and Bastions as well. I got 3 of them. The Avatar shuffled away. I put Rowdy and Gallant forward as counterpunchers.
The Avatar got to Rowdy but didn't hurt him overmuch (Arcane Shield good and poor dice helped me). The Vanquishers lobbed some shots and killed PKs. The Templar was slow.
I ran/charged the Nyss to keep the Avatar from Enlivening away from Rowdy and Rowdy mauled it good. The PKs and Nyss finished the bastions. The Black 13th killed some support with Mage storm on the Templar killing a Vassal and the other guys killing two choir. Gallant moved up as bait and Gorman advanced.
The Templar beat up Gallant. The Avatar failed to do much more damage to Rowdy with a broken sword and even managed to fail against the Nyss. A Vanquisher got into that fight but was out of range of Rowdy. The other Vanq killed most of my PKs.
I had the remaining PKs charge into the wounded Vanquisher and hurt it. Rowdy wrecked both the Avatar and that Vanquisher. Gorman blinded the Templar. The black 13th killed more support staff. It was getting down to the wire so I moved Constance into my zone behind Rowdy. I ran my support staff way behind her.
The Templar moved to Rowdy and with Battle, Ignite, and Vassal wrecked him. The Vanquisher lit two guys on fire and Feora feated to move the fire to the Black 13th. They burned to death.
Runewood and my remaining PK officer hit the Templar and then Constance flanked it to death. Five heavy wreck markers in a small area now. Gorman blinded the Vanquisher. Dice down was called and since we were fighting on my opponents side of the board I had more points in my scoring zone (he had none on my side). So I won on tertiary. It was a superfun bloodbath tho.
Game MVP: Rowdy, who hung on like a boss to wreck two jacks in a single activation.
Game 5 I played against the Iron Agenda's Tim S. He had
Nemo2
Stormwall
Stormwall
Black 13th
Epic Eiryss
Squire
Gun Mage Captain
Gorman
It was bad for me on a number of levels. First, the two stormwalls can deny a huge amount of the board to my troops with non-attack templates. Second, the Stormcallers lightning strikes are skill checks and therefore not attacks with respect to Blaize's feat. Third, Tim is a great player who plays Cygnar; he knew just how to pick apart my list with the big guns on the Stormwalls. Fourth, my dice left me in the lurch.
I lost the die roll for first (naturally). We moved up. He decided to go for an epic Eiryss bolt assassination on top of two, forgetting Gallant has Shield Guard (and PP had ruled on it recently to be decent again). That gave me a turn to run some PKs around to flank the stormwall. My Nyss killed Eiryss and jammed his backfield, but I was playing pretty badly at this point and forgot to give them +2 to charge attacks with Runewood. Might have killed Ryan with that bump.
He picked apart my important models, killing Cylena, Mirdoch, the PK officer, and Harlan. I filled Rowdy up and he -missed- his charge attack on a stormwall. On snake eyes. Then he managed to miss again during the activation. Terrible. I sent Blaize in with flank to finish it off and that failed as well (7 damage on 4 dice, at -6). Terrible.
I was always going to lose this match to Tim, but I wanted to wreck a stormwall first. Didn't happen. Nemo loaded up his jacks and killed Blaize.
Game LVP: Rowdy, who I needed to not miss twice.
Why can't I quit you, Rowdy?
Game six was another bad game for me. I played against none other than Chuck PG-Bulldog, who was vying for the executioner award. He tabled me pretty fast with pVayl. It was bad. I don't think I ever had a chance. I learned a LOT about high level play though.
I gave him back his Murdoch after he'd killed him.
Overall 3-3 isn't bad, especially when two of the losses came from incredible players, and when my wins were against formidable opponents as well.
Great con and great games.
-Merlin out
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
