Monday 16 March 2015

Smogcon Commanders crucible

So my smogcon 2015 experience started with the hardcore. But it not much to talk about, as I dropped after the first two games. The commanders crucible however, was one of the two tournament I finished this weekend. It is a rather wonky styled tournament, but quite fun. 

I used a 25 pts module of army and coupled it with four casters and battlegroup of 25 points. The army i played was:
Janissa, Fell caller, Max krielstone with ua, max burrowers, max warders. An awesome 25 point module.

The casters I paired it with were pMadrak, eMadrak, Calandra and Jarl.

My opponent carefully considering his game plan. 
Game 1...
...was legion. He dropped saeryn and i dropped eMadrak with double bombers, impaler and pyre. The scenario was rally point. He got to go first and moved far up the board. I moved up to hug a wall and await his alpha. To my surprise, he just moved up to position himself for a better next turn.
This was very good for me, the burrowers popped up and aimed at a scythean and a carnivean. The bombers could aim.with far strike. I feated that round and removed the scythean and half killed the two angels.
End state of the game. A Naga and Saeryn left.

He tried to flank and get into my backlines with one of his angels, half killing one of my bombers on the edge of his control. I used a little trick called tectonic shift to move the angel of my bomber and out of control for Saeryn, hehe. The attrition continued and in the end, I killed Saeryn and everything else. 1-0 for me!

Game 2
The guy from Sweden, or was it Switzerland?
Against a swede from Switzerland. He played skorne and I did not like the look of his pMakeda list with a Mammoth. Fortunately for me, he chose Makeda 2, which only had the Sentry as a reach beast besides 2 Bronzebacks and a gladiator. There were also Nihilators, Slingers and Paingivers. I dropped pMadrak for some nice Sure foot action. I had Mulg, an earthborn and a runebearer I think. 

I have to say I don't really remember much from this game anymore. It was probably not very eventful. I can recall that he gave me the sentry quite early and sort of recognized that it would be very difficult winning the game. After that, I think I picked apart his army piece by piece and won the game. 

Civil war with the trolls!
Game 3
Facing trolls, I was a bit sad I didnt bring eGrim. My choices left were Calandra and Jarl. As my oponent did not have a fell caller in his list, Calandra would be a good drop. He dropped Jarl against me on the scenario ourflank. His army was jarl with an earthborn, blitzer, impaler, pyre. Double warders janissa and stone. He set up his army, going for warders flanking his shooty centre. I depolyed to go for my right circle due to a good wall.

The game became a lot about what shooters were the best. I had a bomber, he had a blitzer. The bomber is better.  I won the game on scenario after having clogged him down with burrowers and stars crossed. That spell really won me the game. He had to go for some last resort assassination on calandra which did not pan out. It was a quite one sided game.

Small caster, large robot. Over compensating perhaps?
Game 4
I was looked into Jarl against Ossrum with some dwarf jacks, the earthbreaker, nyss hunters and a lot of solos. An assassination list, in retrospect. I had jarl, with bomber mauler impaler swamp troll.
The scenario was close quarters, and i placed my brick in the centre. He started with running everything forward. I in turn advanced and magic bulleted both Reinholt and Thor. I also feated to be safe.

He was a bit chocked over the loss of Thor. Magic bullet is a good spell. He moved up closer as he couldnt really see anything. On my turn i move up the brick to attack the earthbreaker the next turn. The burrowers block the jacks and kill a light. I feel quite safe, but i was not. The knockdown shot was what i forgot about. Jarl was knocked down and i died.

Summary
3-1 and quite disappointed with my last game. I have seen that before and should have been more careful, especially looking at the list, it is a pure assassination list. Anyways I placed third and qualified for the master, which was very fun!