Tournament: Dice Dojo Warmachine Weekend Qualifier

Tink helps me get pumped for the tourney

This past weekend there was a Warmachine Weekend qualifier tournament at the Dice Dojo in Chicago. A bunch of folks from Madison drove over to try our luck and I decided to join the fray to get some tournament experience with my chosen lists. It was a four round Masters-style event with Divide and Conquer 1, meaning that we had to play each of our lists at least once during the tournament.

I decided to bring Ossyan, Vyros2 and Kaelyssa's Force Wall as my three lists. The first two I knew could cover all of my match ups, so the choice of Force Wall for the third was simply because I've been having fun with it lately. My lists and reasonings were as follows:

Lord Arcanist Ossyan, First of His Name, of House Vyre, the Conqueror

• Banshee

Houseguard Thane

Arcanist

Max Mage Hunter Strike Force + Mage Hunter Commander

Max Houseguard Halberdiers + Officer and Standard Bearer

Max Houseguard Riflemen + Officer and Standard Bearer

Stormfall Archers

Stormfall Archers

Lady Aiyanna and Master Holt

The reasoning: Ossyan is my go to guy for… well, pretty much every match up. He can handle anything except Shadowpack casters, and even then the Riflemen + feat at least give him a fighting chance. I've also had the most experience with Ossyan, which helps. This list differs slightly from my normal in that I finally gave the AFG the boot in favor of more cover denying shots from the Strike Force.

Vyros, Incissar of the Dawnguard

• Phoenix
• Griffon x 5

• Aspis x 2

Arcanist

Arcanist

Eiryss, Angel of Retribution

Max Dawnguard Invictors + UA

The reasoning: Those shadowpack casters that I mentioned earlier? Vyros2 eats them for breakfast. This list is my dedicated Circle and Legion drop.

Kaelyssa, Night's Whisper. Force Wall Tier 4

• Phoenix
• Phoenix

• Hyperion

• Aspis

Arcanist x 5

House Shyeel Magister x 3

House Shyeel Artificer

House Shyeel Battle Mages

The reasoning: it looked fun. Also I was under the impression that this list could at least do OK vs most lists and pretty darn well against any Meat Mountain style lists.

Instead of doing exhaustive battle reports for each battle, I'll just go through them relatively quickly.

Round 1: Ossyan vs Shae in Outflank

This was vs my perennial opponent Josh, as even when travelling 3 hours to a different meta I'm bound to be paired up against him at some point. He had Shae, Durgen and Damiano on tap, so I went with Ossyan. In hind sight I really should have tried using Force Wall on this match up as I should be saving Ossyan for later, but I digress. He chose the following Shae list:

Shae

• Galleon
• Vanguard x 2
• Buccaneer

The Commodore Cannon and Crew

Bosun Grog-Spar

Doc Killingsworth

First Mate Hawk

Lord Rockbottom

Dirty Meg

Sea Dog Boarding Crew with Mr. Walls, The Quartermaster

Press Gangers

This game was pretty much all about dice. Josh couldn't roll a Tough check to save his life and my dice were on fire. You know this is the case when I eliminate 11 pirates at range on turn 1, and it all went downhill from there for Josh. My Halberdiers were nearly wiped jamming up his Boarding Crew, but after my feat turn on turn 3 he only had the Cannon, Shae and Dirty Meg left to contest the zones. I quickly won on scenario shortly after this, leaving only 3 minutes left on my clock.

Lesson learned: Save your all comer list till you need it! And drop the list you're unsure about early and get it out of the way so your heavy hitters can take center stage.

Round 2: Ossyan vs Deneghra1 in Balance of Power

Round 2 I got paired up against Jordan "Dream Crusher" Knoche, so I knew that I was in a tight spot, and especially so because he was running Cryx. He had already dropped Asphyxious2 in the first round and had Deneghra1 and Goreshade3 as his other two lists. Feeling nervous I decided to go with Ossyan again, as Jordan is a very, very good player and I wanted to get my best shot against him. In hind sight neither of his other two lists had Bane Thralls or Knights, so I probably should have dropped Vyros2 into this matchup. But I didn't, as I am, as they say, a n00b.

He chose this list:

War Witch Deneghra

• Two arc nodes of some variety

Satyxis Blood Witches + UA

Boomhowler and Company

The Withershadow Combine

Cylena Rafael and the Nyss Hunters

Necrosurgeon and Stitch Thralls x 2

Min Mechanithralls

War Witch Siren

This game was effectively over fairly early on as I for some reason though that leading with my Riflemen was a great idea. This only got them Crippling Grasped and eliminated early on, leaving me to never actually use their anti-stealth tech to take on Deneghra or the Withershadow Combine. Due to not screening my troops with Halberdiers and other poor plays the following happened:

• The Strike Force got jammed up by Blood Witches on turns 2 and 3. They cleared themselves off pretty well, but this took them out of the game for the key turns.
• The Riflemen were wiped out
• My Banshee got turned into a Harrower
• My Halberdiers never actually charged and couldn't break the damn trollkin.

Eventually I was facing a sea of mechanithralls and instead of dragging it out conceded.

Lesson Learned: protect the Riflemen when facing Deneghra1 and force the assassination! Also it's important to cycle Shatter Storm to prevent more Mechanithralls from being created, or use the Strike Force to take out the Necrosurgeons early. Basically, I need a lot more practice.

Round 3: Force Wall vs Claws of the Dragon in Destruction

Whelp, due to my poor list decision choices early I was now locked into my last two lists. My next opponent was a Khador player with all three lists still available. Since they mostly involved dude spam I figured that Force Wall would have a better chance than Griffon Spam. Sure enough I ran into the following list:

The Butcher of Khardov, Claws of the Dragon tier 4

• War Doge
• Kodiak x 2

Iron Fang Kovnik x 2

Max Black Dragon Iron Fang Pikemen x 2

Max Iron Fang Pikemen + normal UA

The Great Bears of Gallowswood

This one also went downhill pretty quickly. I blame part of this on being exhausted from the previous matchup, but since Claws of the Dragon grants Advance Move to most of his army he effectively ignores Force Wall's turn 1 slow down, which didn't help matters. I attempted to use my Phoenixes to set his pikemen on fire, but most of them survived the ordeal and quickly hammered down my forces to just a knocked down Kaelyssa, an untouched Hyperion, a damaged Artificer, and three Arcanists.

I sat in the tank for a while, then decided to go for the only winning strategy that I could think of: assassinate the Butcher. Unfortunately there was a veritable sea of Iron Fangs in between me and my goal. So Hyperion, Kaelyssa and the Arcanists ran to one side of the zone while the Artificer bravely continued contesting. On his turn the Artificer somehow miraculously survived the onslaught while a mob of Black Dragons tried to attack the Hyperion but only managed to scratch the paint. In response Big Hypes trampled over them and killed all but one which Kaelyssa murdered. Then some Great Bears charged into Kaelyssa and still left her on 4 boxes. Hyperion continued his onslaught, moving up and sweeping almost all of the rest of the Iron Fangs into oblivion while Kaelyssa killed the Great Bears. All was set for me to have Hyperion smash the Kodiaks on the following turn and bait the Butcher into charging Hyperion… when a single sneaky Iron Fang managed to get on Kaelyssa and roll a 10 to knock her lights out.

Lesson Learned: Don't get locked into lists, but also don't ever give up! If you have a colossal still untouched on turn 4, you've still got a chance. Just not necessarily a very good one…

Round 4: Vyros2 vs Morvahna2

In a stunning turn of events I was locked into Vyros2 but somehow managed to luck into a Circle opponent for my last game. He was also locked in at this point and had to drop the following Morvahna2 list:

Morvahna the Dawnshadow

• Woldwrath
• Woldwatcher

War Wolf x 3

Max Reeves

Shifting Stones

Max Skinwalkers + UA

This game started off pretty well, but went downhill when I moved too many of my pieces to try and force him to feat. I did succeed in doing so, but it left my Phoenix and a Griffon open to be charged by the Woldwrath, which with an earlier loss severely cut down on my Synergy chain. I killed most of the Skinwalkers, but eventually I was forced to just run Vyros at Morvahna and hope that he could make it to assassinate her. It did end up taking a full Woldwrath and Morvahna cutting herself down to 4 transfers past 1 box, but eventually my opponent got Vyros dead.

Lesson Learned: Don't overcommit! Every myrmidon is precious, so only commit them if they either have little possible danger or you will get a good benefit from doing so.

So I ended up going 1-3, not the best showing but at least I made a few good plays. I'm reevaluating my non-Ossyan list choices at the moment as something in them just doesn't seem to be clicking, particularly Vyros2's role as my anti-Circle drop. I'll be trying a variety of different lists over the next couple of weeks to see if I can find something that works better for me while also trying to brush up on some better tactics from the forums.

Thanks for reading, and until next time shank a round ear for me!