Throwin' the Gauntlet: Last Round and Overall Thoughts

As promised, the thrilling conclusion to the Gauntlet Rounds tournament!

The final game had me paired up against another member of Crippled System, Nathan, with his damn dirty Convergence robots. He was running Iron Mother, Father Lucant and Syntherion, but from previous experience (and the fact that he had two Prime Axioms available to use) I was pretty sure that he was going to use Lucant. Seeing that, I decided to use the following Ossyan list:

Lord Arcanist Ossyan, of House Vyre, First of His Name, Atomizer of Robots

• Hyperion

Arcantrik Force Generator

Arcanist x 2

Mage Hunter Assassin x 2

Aiyanna and Holt

Stormfalls x 2

Mage Hunter Strike Force + UA

Sentinels + UA

Halberdiers + UA and Thane

He brought Lucant with this:

Father Lucant

• Prime Axiom x 2
• Corollary
• Galvanizer
• Diffuser

Enigma Foundry x 2

Angels x 2

Reciprocators

Reductors + UA

Algorithmic Dispersion Optifex

… and probably some other stuff.

As opposed to my previous two "games" this one actually had some good back and forth going on. I still made a couple of mistakes, but for the most I felt that I held my own. Again, instead of doing a blow by blow I just want to cover the highlights.

Round 1: I spend a lot of time and effort trying to kill Def 20 Angels with Stormfall fire, only to throw away my Mage Hunter Assassin to kill a single Angel instead of saving it to take out one of his Enigma Foundries. I also move my Hyperion an inch too far forward leading to…

Round 2: ...one of his Prime Axioms charging it under Positive Charge, but still only getting my big robot to just under half health. Lucant feated at this point, making any attempt to harm his forces fairly impossible. I had the opportunity to try for a critical consume on his bunched up Reductors (could have killed 7 or so) but I chose instead to have the Hyperion take out half of the Prime Axiom. Meanwhile my MHSF and the remaining assassin flanked hard to threaten Lucant and my Sentinels foolishly charged his Reductors, killing a few but opening themselves up to be…

Round 3: ...slaughtered by POW 13 rerollable sprays. Ouch. The Prime Axiom finished off my Hyperion, my Stormfalls got engaged because I had moved them up too far previously and a bunch of my Halberdiers got smushed by Reuctors and the other Prime Axiom. However I now got to counter feat, and by using all of my models' activations (including a nice damage roll from my Houseguard Thane's pistol) I was able to bring down both of the Prime Axioms.

Round 4: Reductors murder most of my remaining infantry and he murders my objective while Lucant moves to dominate the zone. I counter by shoving my remaining Halberdiers in the zone along with the AFG, but I leave my infantry too close to the AFG allowing…

Round 5: … Lucant to get distance on the AFG and wipes it. Fortunately I had one infantry still in the zone, so I decide to go for an assassination. Unfortunately Lucant shield guards Ossyan's shot onto the Galvanizer and I'm only able to get him down to half health, allowing him to dominate for the win.

Next time I'll make sure to prioritize his Enigma Foundries for destruction, as with them on the board I couldn't even try to eliminate his infantry. I'll also try to keep my forces reeeeaaaally far back as I wait for his feat turn to expire, as if I get too close I can't do enough damage to smash his models.

General thoughts on the format:

Overall I think that the Gauntlet rounds are an interesting idea and definitely better than the previous year's format, but I still really, really don't like 75 point games. Playing Warmachine at 75 feels like playing Warhammer except with finickier rules and positioning, which is definitely not what I'm looking for in a game. It also really pushes you to have a game plan right from deployment, as getting all of your forces in the correct place from the start and having a good idea for how they will unpack is crucial when there are so many models on the board. Since I'm historically bad at this phase of the game except with armies that I'm very familiar with, you can see how this will color my opinion.

That being said, I can certainly see how the above points are intended to divide the lucky scrubs from the top tier tournament players, so the format seems to be working as intended. It's also nice that the 75 point games are only for the last two rounds, as having an entire day of 75 would probably break my soul.

If I were to play this again I would definitely focus more on the assassination. Retribution has never had a great relationship with attrition and 75 points seems to compound this issue. We have more tools to get a good alpha on, but due to the sheer quantity of models it's harder for that alpha to mean something. Since we can't hold the zone all that well and I don't have the skills for long games at this point level that leaves going for the enemy caster as quickly as possible, which is fortunately something that we're pretty darn good at.

Seeing as that's the case I think the three casters I chose are pretty good for the format. Switching out Ravyn for Kaelyssa would also work pretty well, as Phantom Seekered Hyperion can certainly kill casters if he gets half a chance to do so.

So, a bit rambly, but hopefully you enjoyed. Let me know what you think of the new format and how your force will handle it, and of course until next time shank a round ear for me!