Golden Troll Open 2011, the exploits of Sevvy Part I

As I mentioned previously, from the Yorkshire area; myself, Luke Foster, Andy McBirnie and Mark Coultas were all attending the Golden Troll Open event, last Saturday (29^th October 2011).  For Luke and I it was our first tournament meeting up with various well known individuals from around the country, if you listen to the UK podcasts you’ll probably have heard of a few.  We knew the field was going to be very tough as many of these players are of the highest calibre in the land and many were finalists for the UK Hardcore Series final being held on the following Sunday!

My lists can be seen in this post and I kept to them without making any last minute changes.  Like I’d said in previous posts on the competitive aspect I could have done with more variation between the lists, but on reflection I had a great time and I don’t think that two very similar lists particularly hindered me.

Photos of my fully painted army can be seen below:

Exemplar Errants and UA

Daughters of the Flame

Covenant of Menoth

Temple Flame Guard

Right of passage (from prime to epic) Severius!

The obligatory Menoth Choir and Vassal

The Vanquisher and Avatar duo

The Blessing of Vengeance

I’ll run through my four games for those interested in my gaming exploits on the day:

Game 1

Mission:  Capture the Flag

Opponent: Lewis Johnson

Opposing  faction: Legion of Everblight

Vayl

*Scythean

*Ravgore

*Raek

Warmongers (full)

Raptors (min)

Annyssa Ryvaal

Shepherd

Strider Deathstalker

Strider Deathstalker

My chosen army: pSevvy

My opponent is very well known in the gaming community and currently seeded 1st on the UK Rankings; and I knew I was going to have a tough first round, luckily Lewis had a monster hang over after a heavy previous night!  We shared a few laughs over his exploits, but I didn’t think his inebriated state would make too much difference…

I chose my prime Sevvy list because I like that one the most, but after setting up I wondered if epic Sevvy would have served me better.  Still it was much of a muchness to be honest.

Turn 1  Lewis won the roll off and went first sending his Legion quickly up the field and positioning to strike next turn, I reciprocated during my turn.

Turn 2  Lewis’ next turn meant I lost numerous Errants and Choir members from long ranged shooting.  I retaliated by sending out a well placed Ashes to Ashes and boosting damage on Vayl, which was transferred.  I did spot an error on Lewis’ part as he had placed Vayl right next to a low DEF heavy beast, I shot the beast with the Vanquisher and set Vayl on fire, which was going to hamper him as the game progressed.  Lewis had lots of transfers so Vayl was still uninjured, though her beasts were sharing the damage I inflicted.  I also mauled most of the Warmongers unit, setting numerous alight and killed the Shepherd.  Not a bad turn really.

Turn 3  The fire stayed on Vayl and she transferred again.  Lewis opened up by moving his Raptors up and managed to get a cheeky LOS to Sevvy and shot him with their bows, Lewis hit with 2/3 shots and rolled really high twice putting Sevvy in the dirt.  We measured the range as 12" really was on the border line of being able to shoot Sevvy and one of the Raptors was out, but luckily for Lewis it was the one that missed anyway!

So game 1 was lost, I don’t think either of us thought that the Raptors could do it alone, but any dice game can see a couple of good rolls change the tide quickly.  I would have liked to see what had happened if I had survived the turn as Lewis would have feated and both armies would have clashed big time, still I lost fair and square and Lewis deserved his win.

Game 2

Mission:  Overrun

Opponent: Dean Hubbocks

Opposing faction: Circle of Orboros

Kromac

*Gnarlhorn Satyr

*Feral Warpwolf

*Warpwolf Stalker

*Gorax

Tharn Wolf Riders (min)

Druid Wilder

My chosen army: pSevvy

I picked pSevvy again as I like his play style and my opponent had two fairly beast heavy lists with lots of melee output and I wanted to match that with my own, plus each list had very few targets for eSevvys feat, not that pSevvy does much against Hordes anyway!

Turn 1  I won the roll off and opted for first turn and chose a board edge with a suitable piece of cover for Sevvy to hide behind, I knew I had to be careful of the Wolf Riders given pSevvy’s demise to similar light cavalry with ranged weapons so they were a target priority for me.  I just ran forwards on my first turn and put my upkeep spells up.  Dean used the assault order on his Wolf Riders and attempted to hurl javelins into my Errants, but was short on range, his beasts advanced to just outside of the scoring zone.

Turn 2 This turn was fairly decisive, the Wolf Riders were within arcing range of the Blessing and I blasted them with Ashes to Ashes, catching all three and a beast too.  Unfortunately I rolled abysmally and only killed one.  Should I have killed them all my Errants were going to charge/run at the Circle beasts and lock them outside of the scoring zone and try and force a scenario win, but instead I opted to advance them and shoot dead the remaining Wolf Riders and Druid Wilder solo and take the odd pot shot at the beasts with any remaining shots.  I had also advanced the Vanquished and shot a beast setting it and another on fire.  I enlivened the Vanquisher as it was now fairly forward hoping to bait a charge and then Enliven away.  Dean took the bait and charged the Vanquisher dealing 5-6 damage, it then made a full advance out of the way.  Dean sent his other beasts into the Errants and killed all but the officer, some sneaky self sacrificing prevented the Stalker from dealing too much damage which helped.  The Feral made a long charge at the already damaged Vanquisher, presumably to try and cripple it further, which it succeeded in doing as its combat arm lost its system boxes from the charge attack.  The Feral did take a mighty free strike blow from the Errant officer as it ran past, the weapon master carved out the beasts full spirit column in one blow which helped the Vanquisher not take more damage as it could no longer be forced.

Turn 3  When you get that feeling this turn is the one decisive one for the entire game you know its make or break time!  I opened up on the Gnarlhorn, it took a slapping off the Blessing of Vengeance, a fully boosted Immolation off Sevvy and a full CMA from the TFG, but it still drew breath, though it was almost dead.  The next thing was why I like PSevvy so much, the Avatar stepped forth with a full 4 focus and managed to engage two heavies (Feral and Stalker) and the light Circle beast too, it managed to kill all three and had focus enough to spare one to Gaze at the Gnarlhorn preventing it from moving away from the Avatar and potentially trampling towards Sevvy.  Dean had virtually nothing left to do and healed the Gnarlhorn a little, killed a couple of TFG and ran Kromac.

Turn 4  My turn four was swift, the Avatar finished off the wounded Gnarlhorn, then the Blessing advanced and killed Kromac.

So after two games I had achieved my objective and one one game out of four, though I ideally wanted a second victory.  During the lunch break I enjoyed some mild mannered banter with my buddies and we discussed the previous two games and everybody except me had used both lists so far (tournament rules stated that you must use each list at least once during the tournament) so I decided I’d be using epic Sevvy no matter what; and as previously discussed there wasn’t a lot of difference between my lists.

Part II will discuss the exploits of the afternoons gaming.