Leeds Domination Tournament write up

Introduction

In my last entry I discussed the prep for the Leeds Domination event to be held last Sunday.  I’d managed to get a place at the last minute and join fellow Hull Warmachine club members Luke, Dave and Mehmet.  We travelled down as a group and got there a little earlier than perhaps we needed, circa 10am, though the event first round was supposed to start at 11am and we were to meet in Leeds Travelling Man at 10:30 – unfortunately when we got there the shop was closed and no other wargamers were to be seen…

After a hearty bacon butty breakfast the Hull guys tried not to look too geeky loitering outside Travelling Man, but then the sky went dark and it began to rain, I was glad to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt…

Eventually the shop opened and we were ushered to the gaming venue a street or two away.  The boards were well set out with a variety of Warmachine friendly terrain and the gaming space wasn’t too overcrowded for the fourteen players (there were a couple of drop outs at the last minute).

The Guys; Lookin' Kool! ;-)

Below is a brief synopsis of my four games and my version of the Menite Northern Crusade:

Game 1

Opponent: Tony Moore

Army: Legion of Everblight, Vayl2 (tier 4)

Scenario: Outfight, Outflank, Outlast (no reinforcements)

I’d heard of Tony Moore, perhaps from posts on TWF as well as mentions in Rankings HQ and other big events, such as the UK Masters.  I knew he was a good player and I’d be up against it from the off.  Tony had two lists, Vayl2 and Saeryn, I felt Kreoss1 would be best here as if I faced Saeryn I could shoot with my heavy jacks and have a get-out counter feat and shoot again plus Kreoss could do well against Vayl2 also.

Highlights of the game were some cat and mouse manoeuvring from both of us, but from my point of view gaining the upper hand in attrition and control points early on.  I managed to kill most of Tony’s army without loosing too much myself, my heavies were all unscathed and Tony was down to just an almost dead Ravagore, Vayl2 almost dead, a Helion Sorceress half dead and a Shepherd.  I managed to set Vayl on fire and had a good go at killing her with my jacks, but not quite enough to burn through all her transfers.

The game had a very odd conclusion as ‘dice down’ was called just after Tony had finished moving his last piece into the left hand scoring zone (which contested the zone) and had just managed to throw my heavy jack out of the other zone giving him a control point and levelling us on the ‘dice down’.  Therefore it went to tertiary conditions, which were what the point values were of surviving models within the scoring zones.  Luckily for Tony all of his models were in the zones and most of mine not, despite me having lots more points left alive, so he won by just 2 army points!  Tony said he felt bad to win that way, but I was gracious and congratulated him on the win, as ‘them’s the rules’!  Fair play to him, though it did feel like snatching defeat from the jaws of victory!

Result: Loss

Control points:1

Army points: 49 (this was recorded wrong on the final standings for some reason)

Game 2

Opponent: Alain Watson

Army: Legion of Everblight, Saeryn

Scenario: Diversion

I’d played Alain before at the York Grand Slam tournament earlier in the year; he was a really pleasant chap and a pleasure to play against so I was looking forwards to the game.  Similarly to the last game Alain had Saeryn in his two lists and I opted to go with Kreoss again, for the same tactical reasons.

This time I’d get to see whether my idea for fighting Saeryn was optimised, but felt that my accurate Reckoners could hurt the fragile Legion beasts which have high defence, but low armour.

Highlights of the game were Alain making a mistake, which was exposed after the fact, by not feating sooner rather than later.  I basically got to charge three of his four heavy beasts with three of mine, plus my infantry.  I killed all three and some support solos giving me a huge advantage that Alain couldn’t really come back from.  Alain fought on however killing quite a bit of my infantry, but not my heavies.  He feated this time and sent his remaining Angelius running (well flying) next to Kreoss, an interesting gambit which posed a serious threat – a beast I can’t hurt stood next to my warcaster…

Kreoss defended himself well by casting Defender’s Ward on himself and camping the rest of the focus (no point allocating to the jacks considering they couldn’t attack the Legion beast or Saeryn).  I took the freestrike, which missed, and positioned my models to bog down the Angelius as well as Saeryn and keep Kreoss safe as he heroically retreated!

The following turn saw my forces annihilate the remaining Legion forces to the last man (woman) and a win on caster kill.  We discussed the game afterwards and I suggested that Alain should have feated a turn earlier to avoid the Menite warjack charge, which was devastating to his army.

Result: Win

Control points:0

Army points: 60

Game 3

Opponent: Mehmet

Army: Cryx, Deneghra1

Scenario: Gauntlet

Getting drawn against another Hull Warmachine player was probably inevitable given there were four of us and only fourteen players, but I’ve only played Mehmet a handful of times so it would be good to get a game in.  I chose to use my Severius list as I needed to use it at least once and didn’t want to be locked into it for the final round if it would be a bad match up.  Mehmet also only had one list which made this decision easier.

Having had a dabble with Deneghrah1 just prior to the ETC I knew what Mehmet’s list did and I positioned my forces to deal with Bane/Bile Thralls and assorted solos/jacks.  I was concerned a little about the Wraith Engine as I wasn’t sure how it worked exactly and kept the Avatar central to deal with it in melee if needs be as it had a magical weapon should it go incorporeal and threaten Sevvy.

Highlights of the game (for me) were the Vanquisher burning lots of Bane Thralls with some well placed shooting and the Errants killing the Wraith Engine with numerous high weapon master charge dice rolls.  They also prevented the Wraith Engine collecting souls with their Self Sacrifice ability.  The Blessing of Vengeance lent a hand on my right flank with a well placed charge into Mehmets arc node and Wraith Engine.  The Avatar eventually got a bead on Deneghra and she died to its mighty P&S 22 Sword, going in at MAT11 and 3D6 to hit and damage (at +8) was just plain rude!

Result: Win

Control points: 0

Army points: 42

Game 4

Opponent: Dave Forster

Army: Khador, Vlad3 (yep Legendary Vlad)!

Scenario: Destruction

Getting drawn against yet another Hull Warmachine player was a shame at this point as we were on a fairly high standing with a possible podium finish for one of us…

Dave is a good mate and regular opponent of mine so it would be a great game and Dave chose Legendary Vlad as his warcaster and I chose Kreoss, though the Avatar and Blessing would have been useful too.  I went with Kreoss because his feat would be stronger against the high defence infantry and the Reckoners could shoot the objectives from afar.  I was really thrilled to play against a new legendary warcaster, though I wasn’t sure exactly how he worked and would need to be sharp on understanding how Dave’s forces could increase their speed and angles under the feat and spell Dash.

Highlights of this game were initially Dave making a couple of slight misjudgements in distance which allowed me to get the upper hand quite quickly.  Dave lost Eiryss2 and Fenris early on and this paved the way for one of my Reckoners to advance on, and destroy Dave’s objective, then go after the second.  My feat was also quite devastating and it was used to kill Eiryss2, all the Kayazy and a Uluhan.  Dave had unfortunately made another slight mistake and forgot to cast the legendary Vlad version of the spell Signs & Portents spell on his Uluhans when they charged my TFG unit which they desperately needed to improve their chances of hitting.  In preparation for this inevitable charge I had mini-feated the TFG (+4 ARM) and given them Defender’s Ward and Tough from Rhupert, making it very hard to hit and kill them on a charge (DEF 17, ARM 19).  They were basically defending my own objective.

Dave pressed hard on my objective with his Spriggans and Uluhans under his own feat, but my TFG and Reckoner held the line, eventually destroying the attacking force before they had chance to complete their mission.  One Spriggan seemed to live through every attack I could muster, its shield saving it and being the last system to expire – we had a right good laugh every round with this stubborn Spriggan!!

‘Dice down’ was eventually called before I could destroy the last objective, though I had taken a few damage boxes off it, as had Dave on my first objective, so the game was a win to me on control points (1-0) – no tertiary conditions this time!

Result: Win

Control points:1

Army points: 53

Event summary

I felt that the event was well organized and that prize support was good, though it was a shame only Best-In-Faction coins were available for Hordes players, though this was clearly stated.  I enjoyed all of my games and felt all of my opponents were proper sports.  I was delighted to finish 2^nd overall, which was quite contested due to several players finishing on three wins.  The sort mechanism was strength of schedule, which is a mathematical value based on how well your opponents did and mine was higher, clearly I must have had a harder tournament than my rivals!!  Tony Moore, to whom I lost to in the first game, won the event overall with four wins and as I came within a hairs breadth of winning that game I felt I had given a good account of myself, it was just a shame I had to achieve second by beating my friends; sorry Dave and Mehmet.  :-(

I seemed to score fairly low on Control Points, possibly due to getting a caster kill and focusing on that rather than the scenario.  But the shocking thing more than anything was breaking 200AP’s in four rounds, averaging killing over 50 points of models in every game I played!

Thanks for reading!