WTC Solo Masters 2015 part 1

The WTC in 2015 was held in Killarney, on the far side of Ireland from where I am looking. After a flight to Dublin a train ride took me to where I needed to go. The venue was really well adjusted for a tournament this size. One big convention hall held the entire event, with the team tournament on the ground floor and the solo masters on the first balcony floor. There was plenty of room to walk about and there was a bar in the room as well.

I attended the solo masters along with 57 other players in the six round tournament and managed to do pretty well. The lists I brought to the masters were:

The venue seen from the balcony

pMadrak, Objective: Fuel
- Runebearer
- Mulg
- Earthborn
- Pyre troll
Janissa
Fell caller
Max Warders
Max Warders
Max Stone + Elder

Specialists:
Thrullg, Min Scattergunners+Ua, Feralgeist, Axer, Kithkar

Calandra, Objective: Effigy of Valour
-Runebearer
-Bomber
-Impaler
-Pyre
Fell caller
Sorcerer (Warders adjunct)
Kithkar
Max Warders
Max Warders
Max Burrowers
Max Stone+Elder

Specialists:
Bomber, Whelps, Pendrake, Chronicler, Kithkar

Round 1
Against a Norwegian minon player, sporting Jaga Jaga with croak raiders, spitter, wrastler, horror and two units of gatormen and Bloody Barnabas on two fronts. She chose to drop Jaga jaga and I dropped Calandra, swapping out the kithkar for pendrake.

I won the roll to go first and decided to start, in turn I got the side with a forest in the middle in front of my deployment zone. I decided to deploy a warder unit to the right and one to the left, focusing with my battlegroup for dominating my zone. The pygs deployed in the center. My first round I just run everything up and burrow the pygs. My oponent runs her army up and and places her croaks around the spitter in a trench.

On my second turn I pop the burrowers so that I can get a few of them onto the swamp horror and a gatorman. But to get there I need to clear some croaks with the bomber, which was not a problem. The pyre also gets to walk up (not caring about the croaks) and shot at the spitter in the trench. The croaks next to him are all lit on fire. The burrowers don't do much about the horror, or the gatorman, but they are blocking the way forward for the minions.

With most of her croaks gone and nothing juicy reachable by the gatormen or beasts, my opponent decides to clear out the pygs and move forward slowly. On my third turn, The warders get into the fray, I feat, kill my opponent's objective, do a lot of damage to the wrastler, bull snapper and swamp horror, kill the remaining croaks, which now flee, and start picking of the gators. From here on out, the game just turned more and more into my favour. Her beasts could not clear the pygs fast enough between my stars crossed and toughs,

After my second round, burrowers swarming the horror.

In the end, I went for an assassination on Jaga Jaga with the bomber, killing her and scoring my 5th point as well. It was a good start to the tournament.

Round 2
Against a Cygnar player, playing Haley3 and maybe Siege on Incoming. I decided to drop Madrak without any changes, and he dropped Haley3 with two cyclones, tempest blazers, trenchers, aiyana and holt. I realise that I will have to have my brick in his zone if I do not want to lose this game on scenario.

So I get to go second and position myself so that a unit of warders can contest my zone while the rest of my army moves into his zone. He positioned himself just as I though, with haley going for her own scenario zone. After two rounds of moving up and doing nothing, she makes the first move on her third turn, pushing the two warders in her zone out, scoring her first point.

I then decided it was time to gamble a bit, with haley standing on def 19 arm 19 in the zone, she had left the trenchers and blazers in way for me to trample in with mulg and the earthborn during my feat and kill most of her army. With carnage up on madrak, he positions himself so that he could be protected by the warders, Janissas wall and the fact that Mulg would be standing just next to haley and most of the other things gone. So I go for it, going in with Madrak first to clear some trenchers and moving back, then I go with Mulg with the pyre troll animus on him. Mulg tramples into the fray behind the clouds, kills a few blazers, one slammed over Aiyana and Holt, killing Aiyana. He gets to Haley having used two fury, decides to take a swing at her, hitting her and slamming her into the cyclone behind, making her knocked down. The next two attacks hits, and she was dead.

After my round two, Mulg is actually
the proxybase next to the EBDT

I went for a very aggressive play in this game, partly because I think it would pay off even if I didn't manage to kill Haley3, but also that I had an OK shot to kill her. Quick games were also nice as I could go watch the WTC afterwards. So I'm 2-0 and heading to the last game of day 1.

Round 3
I was paired up against a troll player with eMadrak and pDoomy on Recon. I chose to go with pMadrak and he chose eMadrak with fennblades, two units of warders, stone, Mulg, pyre troll. I decided to swap one unit of warders for scattergunners and a feralgeist.

We both deployed rather centrally, I got to go second and deployed so that I could benefit from the water in the centre of the table. This was a really one sided match, he did very little damage to Mulg with the first fenn charges, and Mulg just snacked that back. I used the scattergunners to clear most of the fennblades, and my warders got to trade up against his.

There was no scenario play in this game, I positioned my brick in the zone, with Mulg at def 17 over the wall and the earthborn at 18. My opponent had to go for an assassination after he lost his fennblades, a kithkar, half of the stone unit, one unit of warders and I had lost one warder and taken two damage on Mulg. However, I had given him a shot to kill me, so eMadrak charged one of my warders, killed him and spent the fury to surf over one corner of the janissa wall, buying an attack on another warder, killing it and surfing to madrak. He got to me with 2 fury left, and the feat still. So three attacks, I was having my scroll and a fury, so I should be good. But, he crits his first attack, needing 7's to hit. and i was dead after his second attack, as Mulg did not crit on his attack against him.

I really should have been able to close out this game, but I was a bit to wound up in the "winning as hard as possible" to take a step back and just back up with my caster instead of risking him. Sure, It was not a good assassination run from him, one tough on the warders would have been enough, or him not to crit me, or my mulg to crit him, but it was his only option to win, so I should just have backed up instead.

So after the first three games, I'm 2-1, with a really bad feeling about the last game. But I decide to continue anyways and play really aggressive to get fast games.