How to "win" at Warmachine? The NZ Nationals Day Two

Day Two - The day of fail

So when we left our intrepid adventurer he had somehow managed to beat three really good players and burgle his way into the top tier for days two and three.

personally, I think the reason I made it to day two was that my eCaine list is very good against certain match-ups, and I got to play those match-ups (and not fail)

Round Five vs eSorcha and Khador (Rick T)

Turtle vs Death star...... that doesn't sound fair at all.

This was a very close game and by far the longest game I played in the tournament. Rick needs to tighten up his time management skills a smidge, as he was deathclocked in one game and came perilously close to be clocked against me.

My list was a little wacky but loads of fun. pHaley sitting inside her bubble with a defender and a stormstrider, with Precursor Knights as the counter punch unit. Out in front of the bubble ranges a hunter, a grenadier and some chain guns. For 2 points the humble chain gun is an annoyance that is very difficult to remove with shooting, and on occasion, does a bucket load of damage.

The grenadier had a bit of a blinder in this game, accounting for an awful lot of the Death Star with its incredibly accurate blast weapons. Temp bubble + Trencher Gunner + Standing still gives the Grenadier effectively rat 12??? and 3 shots at pow 12 (with focus for boosts from haley) and you have a pretty cheap, very effectively little package.

I adopted my standard anti-collosal tactic is this game...... ignore the big stupid thing and shoot the caster instead.

Lordy that worked well here, Sorcha ran forward, used her feat, wiffed most of her armies attacks asides from one good shot on the Storm Strider (which blew it up in one shot..... ouch). Then, stuff happened, and not good stuff.....

Die you frigid cow DIE!

You see this pic... this is the second round of shooting I had against Sorcha. You see on turn one I hit her with everything, including the kitchen sink under blitz. Shot after shot smacked into her and did a whopping X-1 damage (X being her life total).

Yep, 1 life left and then the turn above. Rick, at this point is on 4 minutes time left.

After going for Glory, Haley got collosal fist to face.

I ask myself the question, do I go for the kill shot? Or do I run Haley away, camp focus and be a giant douche and let Rick time himself out.

Kill shot ordered! One damage needed, 5 rolls on 3 dice needing one 12 to hit.......

Miss, miss, reroll, miss, miss. GODDAMIT TO HELL!!!!!!!!!

Next round Conquest applies fist to face, Rick ends with 90 secs on the clock.

Result: Haley gets big fist to face, Rick wins : Score 0-1 for this comp (3-2 overall)

Round Six Vs. The Coven and Cryx (Sean Lincoln)

So apparently the coven suck....... Lies I tell you, freaking lies.

What an amazing "caster" the coven is, something truly unique in the game. Sure, they aren't "blow you pants of OMFG awesome" like some top tier casters, but they allow for some very interesting timing rules as they can split their casting across multiple phases of one turn.

Sean used this to great effect one turn by activating one witch, casting a spell that granted ghostly to a unit, charging with them, then activating the 2nd witch and casting the spell on another unit. Very clever, and very effective.

This game was attrition, pure and simple. Turn by turn, Sean and I dismantled each others forces until very little was left. The picture below shows all the models left in the battle on the last turn (asides from the coven, who were hiding far far away). Sean punched through with his barely alive arc node to deliver the final kill blow to haley, who had run out of focus trying to boost attacks to kill said arc-node.

Arc node..... why wont you die!

Sean and I both learned a lot from this game. Here are some of the key lessons.

Terrain does not stop Cryx from doing anything ever. Ghostly units move through buildings....
Don't forget chain guns, under temporal barrier they are effectively Rat 10 with 4-6 shots.
Pistol Wraiths suck.... shoot them in the face early and often.
However, having your pistol wraith shoot the Stormstrider just powers it up, it wasn't moving anywhere anyway and has 360 degree fire. Boosted striders are scary scary things.
Explodey thralls make expensive units of precursors very very sad.
Haley has chain lightning, and always rolls a 6 for the number of jumps it makes. Satyxis do not enjoy this.
Always keep some focus on Haley so she can't be spelled to death.

Result: Haley gets spell to face, Sean wins : Score 0-2 for this competition (3-3 overall)

Round three - Bye (Bonus pics)

Having lost both games I drew the bye round (we had a player go home sick, he came back for Day three though). I was quite tired and sore (I had been having tooth ache all weekend, three days after the tourney I got 3 wisdom teeth out... FUN!).

I used the time to take pics of the other players and stuff going on.

Oh yeah, I lsot every game i played this day..... so how to win at warmachine is still a long way away.