Monday 13 July 2015

Tourney Tales - Jaunce in July

Hey wargamers, and welcome to the latest edition of Tourney Tales! As I mentioned in my last couple of battle reports, I've been preparing for a tournament, which I just finished! Jayke from Hall of Legends and I headed down to Sheffield together. The tournament was The Outpost's Jaunce in July. It was a 50 point D&C1 steamroller with ADR. The lists I took with me were the two I've practiced over the last couple of weeks:

eLylyth +5
-Succubus -2
-Ravagore -10 
-Ravagore -10
-Typhon -12
-Naga Nightlurker -5
-Bolt Thrower -6
-Shredder -2
Deathstalker -2
Deathstalker -2
Shepherd -1
Shepherd -1
Foresaken -2
Objective - Bunker

And

Saeryn +5
-Angelius -9
-Angelius -9
-Scythean -9
-Scythean -9
-Raek -4
-Shredder -2
Foresaken -2
Foresaken -2
Deathstalker -2
Deathstalker -2
Spell Martyr -1
Spell Martyr -1
Maximum Spawning Vessel -3
Objective - Fuel Cashe

I feel like these two lists cover match ups really well and have some cool tricks and tech that I can play around with. The field at The Outpost was pretty varied but had some very competitive players in the game. My goal was to field test my Legion lists and see how they played in a tougher situation under a clock. Because it was quite a frantic day with timed turns I didn't get chance to take photos of the games. This also means I don't remember the play by play and so you'll have to manage with a summary of the games...

Round One 

My first round pairing was Matt 'Golly' Golliver, an internationally ranked player and part of the England WTC, as well as the winner of the Welsh Masters this year and Tiebreaker's 4th highest ranked player in the country. On top of that he was also a Legion player! Not only had I been dreading the mirror match I was playing it against someone way more experienced with the faction and the game than myself. He was using p and e Vayl in his two lists. Looking at the two lists I was pretty certain that he was going to drop eVayl. My plan was to drop eLylyth into the mirror but looking at the eVayl list I thought that he would be more than capable of tearing my Lylyth list to pieces. I elected to drop Saeryn and, like I thought, he dropped eVayl. The list was tier 4 (of course) and contained three Angelii, two Ravagores, two shepherds, a spell martyr, max Hex Hunters and a max Spawning Vessel. 

I lost the roll for the start of the game, even without Vayl's tier bonus. The first round was Destruction and I picked the table edge with a wall just outside kill box. Golly ran his Hex Hunters up, taking a commanding position in the zone, moving all the beasties up to threaten. I followed up by jamming into the zone and using my feat. There was still a lot of shooting and magic in his list, though, and so he was able to wear down most of my beasts despite missing multiple rolls. I had some poor die rolls taking out one of the Ravagores and managed to quickly lose the advantage on the piece trade. He quickly cleared all my beasts off the table, but not before I managed to get a control point by destroying the objective. As well as controlling the zone he also managed to repulse Saeryn from he wall with an Angel and then kill her with shots, completely clearing me off the table and getting more than 100% VPs thanks to the Vessel who'd spawned a Harrier. So my first round ended with a pretty comprehensive schooling from a real veteran. Oh well, on to Round Two!

Round Two

In Round Two I was paired up against a Cygnar player. This time around we were playing Recon. His lists were an eCaine build and an eStryker list. I decided to drop eLylyth as my Cygnar drop to out threat him and go for assassination where possible. He elected to play his eCaine list which was made of a squire and Hunter in the battlegroup along with Reinholdt, Gorman, Carvolo, Eiryss, max Boomhowlers, Gun Mages and UA with two marshalled Hunters and two units of rangers. I won the roll and chose to go first, while he gave me the edge with a forest in front of my deployment zone for Lylyth to hide behind. The Boomhowlers jammed pretty hard but took a beating on feat turn. His list struggled to take out my heavies, removing an over-extended Typhon early in the game but struggling to take out anything else once his things had been whittled down. 

Throughout the game he was very cautious with Caine, taking almost no shots and not feating at all. On one turn late game he moved up towards one of the flags to dominate and put pressure on. Lylyth shot into melee to take out some Boomhowlers and free up the Ravagores the first used animus and missed a shot (he had elevation) doing a few points from blast damage and setting off the cont. fire on his low arm caster. The second Ravagore cranked the boosted hit roll and caught him, stripping almost all of his boxes, leaving him with only a handful left. Unfortunately the fire went out on his turn, saving him, and giving him chance to run away. We attritioned a bit longer and I lost all my models except Lylyth, a shredder and a Ravagore. He then felt secure enough to move up again for the flag on the other flank, getting toe in on a forest. Not that my Ravagore cared about that. Lylyth shot out the last Boomhowler in the way and then the final Ravagore moved up, threw up the animus and then took the shot. It missed but the blast clipped him, I boosted the blast damage (he was on a 0 camp) and got him down to 3 boxes. This time fire stayed up and I rolled 4 on the damage, just enough to finish him off and secure me an assassination win!

Round Three

In round three I was paired up with a local Khador player in Incursion. He was using a pairing of a tier 4 Butcher2 Doom Reaver spam and Butcher3. Khador, along with the mirror, was the one faction I'd been uncomfortable with, since my drop could go either way depending on the lists. Looking at what he had, though, I decided that Saeryn was the best choice. He picked Butcher3. The list was merc heavy and included Ruin, Beast 09, Juggernaught and a war dog, as well as eEiryss, a Gobber Tinker, Gorman, Kell Bailoch, a Bokur, Aiyana and Holt, the TAC corps with Valachev, and a unit of Widowmakers. 

I won the first turn and ran everything up the board, taking a commanding presence, and he followed up grabbing some more real estate. On my second turn I had both Angels charge the Juggernaught, destroying it. Meanwhile the Deathstalkers started pinging shots off the Widowmakers, killing a couple. The Scytheans continued up towards the central flag. Then I feated, keeping my guys safe. Despite the feat he managed to shoot one of my Scytheans to death, using almost all of his models' activations. One of the most important activations was Gorman throwing Black Oil at my remaining Scythean, missing and deviating back onto all of the TAC corp, who were the only models contesting the middle flag. 

On my post-feat turn I moved my Raek to control the flag on my right which had nothing contesting it. The pot produced a Harrier who used animus and charged one of the contesting Widowmakers on the other flank, the Deathstalker removing the other, letting me control that flag too. The Scythean advanced to B2B with the centre flag, also getting reach on all of the TAC, clearing them off to secure that flag too, giving me 3 points in one turn. On the Khador turn Butcher moved up and used impending doom and flashing blade to kill my last Scythean and both Angelii. Beast 09 moved in to contest the Raek flag and two widow makers and Eiryss moved to contest the other flank, failing to hit the Deathstalker, though. On my turn the Harrier, totally out of control and on two fury, frenzied, charged and killed one of the contesting Widowmakers. The Deathstalker finished off the other Widowmaker but couldn't hit Eiryss. The pot stepped up, killing its own guy into the pot, producing another Harrier who animus and charged Eiryss, killing her and securing the flag, putting me on 4. On the other flank a moderately damaged (two armour pierce attacks last turn) Beast 09 was contesting my other flag preventing the win. I decided to go chips in. Saeryn moved up and chucked two Hellfires at it, boosting one damage. The Shredder then went rabid and advanced into melee, taking two double boosted attacks, followed by the loaded Foresaken who took 3 boosted damage attacks on him. Finally the Raek moved into melee, using all of its attacks to just manage to scrap the heavy, netting me the 5th, winning, control point, saving the game!

Round Four

Moving into round 4 I was on 2 and 1, putting me back into a competitive position. I was the pair up this round, being matched with Adam Bell with his Menoth. Remember back in round one when I got paired with the 4th highest rated player in the country? Adam is the 5th highest and top Menoth player, as well as another England WTC player. [sarcasm] Yay [/sarcasm]. I was also knackered by this point and was pretty tired but luckily Adam's a great guy and really fun to play against, even if he's a fantastic player who definitely plays to win. The scenario was Fire Support this round. He was playing Anson Durst and (I think?) eSevvy. eLylyth was my Menoth drop so my decision was pretty much made. Adam decided to drop Durst. I was pleased with that, not because I thought I'd be any good against it, but because I wanted to see, as a Menoth player (recovered), how the new guy played. Turns out it's pretty well. The list he was running was a Reckoner, Fire of Salvation, a Templar, a Devout, a hierophant, Nicia, eEiryss (again), Gorman (again), a Vassal, Corbeau, a reclaimer, a min choir and a max unit of Zealots with UA. 

I won the roll to go first and took the first turn, giving up the board edge with the trench. The game didn't last long and was one of the first of the round to be finished. I had trouble doing enough damage with Durst's awesome spells and abilities. He took a huge chunk of board space with running Zealots under mini feat which I couldn't shift, and then I had to burn my feat to clear them out. He managed to destroy my objective and control the flag for two points. I then derped trying for a very long shot assassination and failed to contest on my turn, getting him the 3rd point and so he was able to run Durst up to the flag for the scenario win. This was a disappointing but not unexpected loss and, as I said, Adam's a really fun opponent to face across the table and he made getting my ass kicked enjoyable. 

I ended up finishing 2 and 2, and was the highest ranked in that bracket thanks to my high SoS, placing me 7th overall. Given my inexperience with the faction as a whole and my lists in particular I was pretty happy to do that well. Especially with a win for each list. 

While I was more comfortable with my Lylyth list than my Saeryn I think that the Saeryn list is pretty solid and I just need more experience with it. I think I want to adjust the Lylyth one though, to replace Typhon with a third Ravagore, since he really wants to be further up the board than the rest of my army and gets isolated and killed early. 

I had a good time, overall, even if I was exhausted by the end of the day! I'm looking forward to playing some more with these lists and letting you know all about it!

As always thanks for reading, and don't forget to check out the Facebook page and 'like' for regular post updates, photos and more at www.facebook.com/Mitsuharuonminis 

Also check out Hall of Legends for Jayke's analysis of his games!

-M

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