Game 3 was against Reed’s Legion of Everblight
Both of his lists had double ravagores in them so I ended up doing Vlad hoping to get some use out of wind wall and the multi wound guys for moving through scather templates. I hadn’t really ever played against Legion and definitely not against eVayl who he ended up selecting. His list was eVayl, dual ravagores, dual angeluses, scythian, full swordsmen, crockpot with lunch ladies, spell martyr, shepherds. I think that was it.
He made a pretty big mistake early on by bringing the spell martyr too close to the widowmakers who shot and killed it. I used my feat to clear out pretty much all of the swordsmen early on and then move back, but the stupid ravagore’s range is so extreme it ended up not really mattering. I also managed to get an angelius (the one with refuge) but had no real way to deal with admonition. Once more I found myself wishing that I had Eyriss2 in this list instead of the other. Reed is a very good player and he was really clinical in his dissection of my army. At the end of the game I had Vlad left and that was it and he won on scenario. Eyeless site, plus long range shooting, plus high speed, plus inexperience vs. an army meant that I was in for it from the beginning and I was really just playing off my back foot the whole game. Reed plays at Game Empire in Pasadena so I see him around from time to time, hopefully I will get to face him some more in the future.
In retrospect I really think that I lost this game on list selection. Some tough WGI and a decent shooting game would have been really nice in this matchup, as well as Eyriss.
Game 4 was back on more familiar ground – eHaley.
My struggles and, uh, love with eHaley are well documented. Game 4 I get paired up with Greg (maybe Gary? I don’t remember) and his eHaley list. He doesn’t have Stormwall in the list, but does have Thorn and a Stormclad (I think it was), gun mages marshaling a hunter I think?, Eyriss2, Boomhowlers, Jr, Squire, et al. I went with my Vlad3 list since it was pretty much developed by and for this matchup.
I bussed up Vlad and the Uhlans and kept Drago to the left side of the bus and the Drakhun to the other. The assassins plan was to sell their lives dearly and close on the boom howlers and gun mages. The widowmakers got hand of fate and blew off the hunter’s gun arm and then also popped a couple of boom howlers. Eliminators moved up the extreme left flank threatening at Eyriss. Everything else stayed WAY back – basically, if he wanted to feat he would have to come out to meet me. Instead he decided to mostly hold back everything advancing cautiously.
On my turn I cast dash and windwall and creeped just a little bit forward again with most things although Thorn did run forward and allow Haley to arc time bomb on to my bus. The drakhun got a countercharge and did some damage but not much. I was fine with that, because that was my big concern and I was just waiting Thorn out. On my turn I gave 3 focus to Drago to make sure he wrecked Thorn (which he did) . I decided at this point to basically sacrifice the widowmakers to get the junior war caster, which they did and as a bonus they even killed some boomhowlers and drakhun ran to engage several gun mages. The unengaged gunmages then had a round of pretty terrible shooting and only killed one of two assassins who were now in charge range. The eliminators continued running around a big forest that was practically in his deployment zone putting me behind haley and the squire. I also managed to get 2 control points.
At this point, the writing was on the wall and feat would really just buy him a turn before being tabled so he basically just gave up at this point when I got 2 control points on his turn as well. All that practice against Haley2 paid off big in that I was super prepared for her.
Game 5 put me up against Tom Gaun and his Asphyxious2 list.
Strangely, as I was deciding on list selection for this game I realized that the only Cryx matchup I have ever played was against a Mortenebra tier list. I was determined not to make the same mistake in this game as I had in game 3 so selected Sorscha2. I have read up on eLich and knew that his assassination threat is pretty legit and long range so I wanted to do my best to RFP what I could.
He got first turn and advanced stuff up and ran his arc node over on my left flank into range of the widowmakers. They all aimed and managed to take out his arc node which basically let me ignore it for the rest of the game. I put shatterstorm on my WGI and they bobbed and weaved forward. I put iron flesh on sorscha and tried to stay far away.
I managed to kill the bane thrall UA on turn 2 between a short scatter from conquests main gun and a couple of sprays, but didn’t realize that the banner gave tough so ignored that (I just though that they had it native). I also targeted his bile thralls but he got an exarnate off on one of my WGI who then purged killing several, as well as a few bane thralls for his feat. The Blood witches ran to engage my widowmakers and popped mini feat making them incorporeal. I ran my eliminators in against the bane thralls to set up for some back line action but then Gerlac caused terror on them which they failed. They then failed to rally both times they tried over the next 2 turns. That was unfortunate.
The following turn the bane knights charged conquest and wrecked it. I advanced sorscha up and put freezing grip on the bane knights and basically ignored them for the rest of the game. Sorscha kept iron flesh on herself and the WGI and the banes ground each other down with the banes eventually winning the attrition war. My ternion ended up getting into position shortly after to get some great sprays off on the bloodwitches killing all but 2, who the great bears slaughtered in a vicious display of overkill.
Unfortunately, I just ran out of ways to contest the flag and so Tom eventually won on scenario. I didn’t get blown out and think I actually had a decent matchup here, just inexperience and, I think, an overly cautious play style cost me this game. I hope to face him at Game Empire as well and I am trying to find some other Cryx players around just to increase my comfort level in what they have available.
Game 6 vs. Eric Dietsch’s Menoth
I know Eric, he lives on the West side of LA pretty close to my old stomping grounds but we haven’t even played a game. By this point I was pretty much cashed out (no lunch at all, 12 hours of warmachine) so was pretty drained. I decided just to play for pride rather than drop out. Menoth, it turns out, I have only played against twice before – one was Mohsar, and the other was Kreoss2. Eric was running a super fast Feora2 tier 4 list. I ran Vlad3 since that is my anti-huge base list and he had judicator. The rest of his list was Feora2, a couple of units of daughters of the flame, some deliverers, some other stuff.
When I say I was brain dead, that is really almost an understatement and I probably should have just dropped, but like I said, I wanted to finish. How out of it was I? Well, on turn 2 I had 10 minutes left on my clock. I placed vlad poorly after a terrible waste of his feat (I think I used it to kill 2 daughters or something) and didn’t really move to a good place. He ignited Judicator and charged at Vlad. It was pretty close as to whether it was in range or not and he offered to call a judge, but honestly I was afraid that they would rule he was short and I just wanted the game to be over. I had no business playing in that last game.
My final record then was 3-3. I had lost all 3 games that I had little to no experience against, and won all three that I had faced before regularly. If you remember, my goal was to finish 23rd out of 45 and I ended up in 11th, so was really stoked with how it went. I had a great time, my opponents were all really top notch and with the exception of the last game, none of them were really blow outs from the beginning. All in all, kingdom-con was an absolute blast and you should definitely consider adding it to your list of events to go to.
with Mortie. In all seriousness, it was a pretty straightforward mash list with 3 slayers, scrap thrall, a couple of other things. I won the roll and chose to go second. The scenario was Incursion and at the risk of ruining the suspense the center flag disappeared.
