Battle of Westridge 2014

Time for one of the biggest tournaments in Sweden, Battle of Westridge, held in Västerås.
I decided not to break the good couple of p and eMadrak which had worked well in the other tournaments.

Game 1
I find myself matched against Khador and one of the lists was eButcher with one million doom reavers and a conquest.To deal with that many doom reavers, I reckoned that pMadraks feat would be awesome, so I dropped him and faced eBtucher.

So many Doom Reavers.

I played the game very defensively, moving up with my brick centrally and the warders on the sides to deny flanking.My oponent played very mothodically and only charged in with a few doom reavers per turn against my lines. On my turns, I mostly cleared out the jamming doom reavers and moved forward slowly.

On my turn 4 I feated and finally managed to pull of a trick that I have dreamed of for years. Madrak threw down carnage, feated and charged out of combat with a doom reaver. He took the free strike and some damage which made Mulg trigger his protective fit under the feat. He cleared out the jamming units and positioned himself for a better run against Butcher. Madrak clear some guys so that his carnage aura reaches eButcher and then Mulg activated. After eating seven or eight doom
reavers, he reaches Butcher himself and had no problems in ending him after a crit slam on the second attack.

The game was very interesting and very much a standoff. I think that the major thing that tipped the scale in my favour is that the doom reavers do have some trouble hitting my beasts over the wall under Sure foot and that the Conquest was blocked and did not really threaten my lines.

Game 2
The game is Cryx. I decide to drop pMadrak, even though the scenario is two fronts. Against me is Asphyxious3 with satyxis and blood gorgers. No reach troops exept for the satyxis raiders, which is definitely to my favour.

Cryx without banes. I didn't know that existed.

I deploy my troops so that I can position my brick between both zones. However, there is an obstacle in the middle of the which makes it difficult for me to be really threatening on both sides.

He goes for the dominate self plan and floods my zone with different kinds of satyxis and evil trolls. It is starting to look very good for him, untill I feat. Madrak himself makes a move for his zone and clears out a bunch of solos. Mulg gets cleared out by the earthborn and starts to really take out many models. I lost count but I would guess somewhere around 14 models. The blood gorgers did not tough very well. The mistake I made was that I had moved Mulg out of the kriel stone aura by a little more than a hair.

On his turn, he went for killing Mulg and to keep gumming up my zone. Mulg was taken down to less than half HP, but not much more was done by him on his turn. The problem was that I panicked on my last turn. I looked at the clock and thought there was too little left, and when Mulg frenzied, I decided to go for an assassination of Asphyxious with Madrak. It was a bad idéa and it cost me the game as I forgot to contest his zone.

In the end, I feel the match was very close after my feat turn. Had I moved Mulg more into the kriel stone, which I could,the game would have been very different and I need to keep my cool when the clock starts running down, but I couldn't. Had the game gone on longer, I think I could have had a chance to threaten Asphyxious with Mulg and he not frenziyng would have been favourable. It was a fun and tight match.

Game 3
A troll versus troll match up on outflank. For me, the obvious choice was eMadrak as my pMadrak list cannot spread out. He chose to go with Calandra, using double warders, a bomber, a storm troll and burrowers.

Burrower wars in the center, not much hitting was done!

Calandra went heavily for the left circle, while I then focused on the right circle, where he had only deployed a warder unit. Using my kriels against them, There was a chance for me to push them out of the zone as I have a bigger threat range than they do. And that was what the game developed into. On my left flank, I fed him fennblade after fennblade with heroes tragedy to just jam him, while in the center, mat 4 pygs tried to do their best against other def 13 pygs. Nothing really happened there, in other words. On the right, My kriels had jammed the warders out of the zone. THem being 15 guys and the warders only 5 made it difficult for them to clear it up.

On my turn three I could dominate the right circle, taking two points and as Calandra had positioned herself to much to the left, there was little she and her battle group could do to help. It came down to the wire though as a pyg toughed 4 or 5 times in the zone and nearly made the game drag on another round, but in the end I won the game on scenario.

The key misstake from my oponent was to position a major part of his army to one zone, making it easier for me to switch my plan to focus on the right circle.

Game 4

The Desert was on fire that day!

Versus Menoth and Severius on destruction. I fiedled eMadrak to flood both zones and go for an assassination win. Fortunately for me, oponent early went with his feat to clear an assassination lane to Madrak. Fortunately for me, Burrowers and Kriel warriors are not particulary awesome at killing themselves. He did manage to clear my cabers, which was worrisome. The game drew out into a grind, with my fennblades flowing in from the left flank and my cabers shoring up the right flank.

The game ended because my oponent was too carefull with his caster, hiding him just behind one of the reckoners. My Impaler got a crit smite on the reckoner after the third try and left Severius down on the ground in the open. Madrak and the pyre troll had no problems finisishing him of while he was knocked down.

Game 5
I am up against one of the most famous minion players in sweden, and the world. The scenario is into the breack and I drop eMadrak. He is very aware of this and drops rask against me.

Smells a bit fishy, wonder why...

Luckily for me, I get to start the game, running my things up the board. Fenns on the left, kriels on the right and warders center. He has a hill in the center of his side, and decides to place an equal ammount of troops to either side. Rask moves up in the center of the field and feats early, his round one, to stop my burrowers from doing anything good.

On my round two I move up try and clear the zone on my left, however i fail to reach a gatorman due to good placement on his side. The problem is that I have placed Madrak in the open without many guys backing him up. My oponent goes for an assassination but he trips himself up when one of the Bokors places a shambler in melee with Madrak. This makes much tougher for Rask to paralyze. Rask moves up for the shot but rolls only ones on the dice. That made the assassination run much more difficult and unfortunately for him, not workable.

There was therefore a possibility for me to retaliate and kill Rask. He did not have admonition up and I could get Madrak to him. There was only one problem when I got there. I had to get the crit grievous with Rathok so that he couldn't just kill the shamblers and other gators nearby. And I did not get it, so Rask was still standing on some HP. However, I was in a bit of luck and managed to clear out the surrounding units with my remaining kriel warriors and pyg burrowers. That left my warders a chance to charge Rask, needing eights to hit. The first warder got the job done.

I really need to get better at protecting eMadrak. It happens a bit too often that my oponents get good chances to charge and kill him.

Game 6
Last game of the tournament and I am 4-1, which is good, but not enough. I get to go up against on of the best circle players in Sweden an oponent I have not faced before. He rocked Mohsar and eKrueger this time. The scenario was close quarters and I decided to field pMadrak to brick it up. Surprisingly to me, he decided to drop Mohsar and not eKrueger.

I got to start which was good as I could put some quick pressure with my brick against his flag. The only problem I had was an obstacle in the center of the battle field between the two flags. It worked out well for me anyways as he was afraid of Mulg (as you should be) and put to little pressure on my flag. It was easy for me to clear the pillars he put out and keep on pressing forward. At the same time, I got a chance to run Madrak to my flag and start scoring, which I did. On my left flank, things were not looking good. Nuala and her merry bunch were making minced meat of my Warders, with them having no chance to retaliate.

However, I was a bit to scared of Mohsars feat and did not put up transmute on Mulg the turn, which made my oponent sieze the moment and primal two stalkers to kill him and the Earthborn. Unfortunately for him, he rolled a bit badly and only killed Mulg and just hurt the earthborn slightly. Two druids and two pillars jammed me up and contested the flag. ON my turn the earthborn returned the favour and killed both stalkers. I cleared the flag and dominated again for my second point.

Stupid blocking pile of rocks. 

As my left flank really was going bad, I felt I had to win this game as soon as posslbe.

Mohsar decided to feat as my Earthborn was full, and NUala finished of the last warders and Janissa, switching his pray to my Krielstone. He was running out of things to contest my flag, but I think one or two druids took the suicide mission. As I could not rieve fury that turn, my Earthborn frenzied and I did not do much more than clear my flag for my third point.

Nuala and the left flank gang cleared out my krielstone with ease, and switched pray to my Earthborn. They managed to get him down a lot, but not kill him. Mohsar went up to dominate his flag but the earthborn was to close if I recall correctly. He threw the Gorax against me to contest my flag.

My last turn, I got a chance for a pretty nice feat to try and clear out my earthborn for a free-strike-free charge on Mohsar. However, the positioning of the Hunters did not allow me too, I took the chance anyways with my earthborn. He lost his body from the free strike, but it did not matter. Mohsar had no transfers and went down to the Earthborn.

I think this game was very close. Had he chosen to pray my earthborn after Janissa instead of the Krielstone, there would have been no way for me to both clear the HUnters and dominate the flag. It would have turned into a race which I still think I would have had the upper hand in as I would have 3 points while he had only 1.

Summary
This was one of the best tournaments I have been to. Nice people, perfect venue and fun evening activities. I really hope I can go again next year and not lose against Cryx! Even with the loss, I ended up in 6th place which was all right!