How to lose at Warmachine – Nationals edition (Day one)

Well, this is going to be less of a "how to lose" session than normal, as I actually won more games than I lost.

Against my expectations, and probably that of a few others, I played pretty darned well and did pretty darned well. There was only one game where I thought "I have no freaking clue what i'm doing.... and in that game i was thoroughly roflstomped into the ground in no time flat".

Asides from that one horrid round, I thought I played competitively, and had a genuine chance at winning all the games I played.... Feeling groovy about the whole experience.

First up, a shout out to our local PG Chris O (Palarel) for a well run event. He had to wrangle 26 gamers, answer rules questions, do the draw and demo games to interested parties. Chris was sharp all weekend, so my thanks to him.

If I have a gripe at all, its about the venues ONE TOILET, WITH NO LOO PAPER! Yeah..... not the best plan when you have over 100 gamers in one building. I'd go as far to say it was "pants on head retarded".

So just a reminder, day one was pools of 6 player, top 3 went on to the big boys league, bottom 3 played for the wooden spoon. Strangely enough, this turned out to be a day of surprises and many people picked to get through to the top tables crashed and burned.

Honestly, it was nice to see the upsets happen and I think it's good for the hobby having different people winning.

To view my lists, see here.

A brief bit of history. I suck against hordes factions most of the time. For the longest time I tried playing them the same way I would a Warmachine Faction: I would focus on creating an attack vector on the caster and try to blow his head off.

Time and again this didn't work vs. Hordes with their transfers, so I went back to the drawing board.

The answer: kill the beasts first, then assassinate the caster. With this in mind my eCaine list was born.

The plan was simple, attrition the enemy army with Caine and the gun mages, hold a zone with the Centurion and wait for an opening.

The key was the use of an early feat with Pendrakes creature targeting buff. In my second turn Caine shot down one heavy beast and virtually crippled a 2nd. This blunted Robs initial thrust and he never recovered.

Caine was a Warbeast slaying machine, accounting for 3 heavies and about 4 lights (Spawning pool was simply generating army points for Caine at the end)

This list was pretty much designed to kill legion, and it did a fantastic job of it (legion have been my nemesis). 

This was probably Rob's worst game of the weekend. He is an exceedingly good player but this is a real example of how one list can be a perfect counter to another.

Result: Vayl runs away from Caine and we win on control points 6-0. Rob is left with Vayl, a shepard and a spawned Harrier....OUCH!  (Score so far 1-0)

Pete ended up winning the whole tournament, and is another excellent player. Unfortunately for him, I turned up with possibly Morvanna2's worst match up and it was still a very very close game.

Morvanna2 revolves around an endless stream of hurting and healing in order to power a lot of her awesome buffs.

eCaine's feat on turn two destroyed Petes wolf men squad and "removed them from game". This was a big deal as it meant Morvanna couldn't bring them back with her feat. Without that, I seriously think Pete would have won this game comfortably.

I have a new respect for Tharn javelin chuckers with Prey, they ate my high defence infantry for breakfast. In the end the Tharn accounted for about 75% of my army with their accurate multiple attacks. Nasty stuff.

The picture below shows the finale. Caines def 20 vs Ranged and Magic attacks proving too hard to hit, and Morvanna eventually falling to the 5th pow 12 shot on Caine's activation.

Any other match-up and I think Pete would have had my number, but the eCaine "HORDESLAYER" list comes up trumps again.

Result: Caine gets a non-feat assassination (Score so far 2-0)

This was a total roflstomping on Mike’s part.

Have you ever played a game where as soon as you set up you go "wow, what the heck am I doing?"

That was this game for me, the list simply didn't do anything and Mike played perfectly in the face of my ineptitude. He may only have killed 2 sword knights, but he won by 5 CP to Zero in round 3.

YEP, note to self. Stormwall needs support, also, against Gorten at least try to put it near an objective.... this will stop him pushing your entire army off the objectives during his feat turn.

Result: Gorten pushes my army off the objectives and has a snack, Mike wins!  (Score so far 2-1)

I've never asked why people call Casey the Italian Spiderman, but they do. It’s a unique nickname and you have to respect someone called the Italian Spiderman. You also have to respect that he is a sharp player who consistently places high in the NZ tournament scene.

We played once before, in a game that I thought I played out of my skin in (even though I lost). I was looking forward to the rematch and chose my HORDES REPELLANT list for 2 reasons.

Reason One!  I had won both games with it against good players

Reason Two! The previous game proved to me that my Stormwall list was not fun to play.

This game played remarkably like the game against Pete. There was some manoeuvring, the enemy Warlock tried to stay away from Caine, and Caine accounted for half the enemy army by himself.  This time however, the Centurion got to prove its value by taking out the Swamp horror (a critter very resilient to shooting) with a good solid spear to the face.

In a repeat of the game vs. Pete the attrition game wore Casey down to the point where he had to bring his caster forward to help turn the tide of the battle, or at least to score some point.

Result:  Rask comes forward to try and score and cripple the Centurion, Caine wiggles free and shoot him down.  (Score so far 3-1)

So I ended up in the top pool, going 3-1 on the day. Pretty pleased with this and I’ve knocked over three of the better players in the tournament. Really enjoyed playing epic Caine, and still cannot win a game with Stormwall. 

eCaine worked really well, using his feat early to get an attrition edge and using caine himself as a deterrent to keep the enemy caster back was great. Rangers were gold with him, as were gun mages, and the Centurion proved to be a tough rock to move. Really looking forward to running him again!

Part two, coming soon!