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!

WTC Solo Master!

View From the Eagle's Nest,  the venue.

This year, the WTC ran a solo master tournament next to the real WTC ream tournament. As I had not been playing anything other than p and eMadrak, this is what i opted to go with. Together with jarl, they set out towards Poland to bring home the win!

For the Jarl list, I decided to go rather shooting oriented. Bomber, Horgle, Impaler, Pyre, Slag, warders and Fenns, I believe.   

The Outflank Outattrition battle. 

Game 1
Convergence and axis on the opposing side. A lot of dudes. So i fielded my lot of dudes. We duked it out, attrition wise until one side was left. Fortunately for me, my side was the one left. And I won, yay!

The brick outnumbers another army. Like first time ever. 

Game 2
Cryx and Mortenebra. She had many jacks with her, scenario was destruction. Perfect opportunity to back tech to pMadrak. I bricked it up an moved into the zone. Warders destroyed a stalker with their "mat" 11.

After getting another stalker to Madrak and failing to kill him, def 16 arm 20 with mulg coming after it, my opponent realised that Madrak prevails and meet his inevitable demise with the British cool temper we all know and love. A good start to the tournament.

Forecast says it is going to be a cloudy day. 

Game 3
Menoth and high reclaimer. Seeing as Jarl is usually a good menite drop, he got the chance to prov what he could do. But let me tell you a story about a feat and a spell that is that feat. It was cloud city and nothing to shoot at! Sad faces on the Bomber, impaler, horgle, the slag troll and the pyre troll. Saddest of them all was Jarl.

I needed some luck with me this game as I switched up the tactics and went for a scenario win on balance of power. All i needed to do was to clear out some idrians that had been knocked down in the zone to start with a 2 point lead while flanking toward my opponent's flag with horgle to threat his caster. This would draw out his army and not make him able to smoke of the bastions, if they went into the zone much more.

However, the piper is a thing and after five tough rolls, the zone was still occupied by the dazed and confused idrians as before. I also got of a magic bullet to the piper himself to get rid off the horrible music he was playing. But fate decided sevens was to much on two dice thus game. Lost it on attrition in the end. Блять.

Aurora is thinking about going for some CP.

Game 4

Cockvergence again. This time with Aurora. eMadrak got to see the field again and attritioned the hell out of her on rally point. The game.ended with a caster kill when aurora tried to go for some control points but was crit slammed by the impaler and killed with a fell caller spray. Being yelled to death.

Game 5 on close quarters

Game 5
Mercs and Durgen, i think. This was day two, and I wad very hung over. VERY. The only list I could play was pMadrak, as the it the least models and the most straight forward tactic.

Sure foot is good against the earthbreaker. My opponent did try do assassinate me but his shooting was not very effective, as they say in Pokemon. Mulg to the face is super effective. That pretty much sums the game up.

Gotta love cryx on incursion. This cryx army was
awesomely painted.

Game 6
Cryx and floaty orb with ladies. First time i faced them. They brought a lot of jacks. Incursion was the scenario, and I knew that dropping pMadrak would be rather bad, but seeing as I had to use my hands to keep my head up and not move miniatures, I chose him any ways.

I got outflanked pretty hard end lost on scenario in the end with only a minute or so remaining for my opponent. Perhaps I could have made him time in some way by running things to contest, but i do not really remember.

This is what the poles think of Arkadius new tier.

Summary

Anyways, a really fun event and many new acquaintances were made. I will definitely be going next year if I have the chance. I think it went rather well for me, i think that if I would have dropped eMadrak against menoth and Jarl agains the last cryx instead, things would have been better. But, it was a learning experience!

The event was very well organised, good and uniform terrain, able judges, and good food.

The only thing to complain about is that there was no painting required on the Solo masters. But, that was the only thing I could complain about!

Trenches!

While santas elfs are preparing the christmas gift, I am preparing trenches and the price for the tournament tomorrow!

Trenches!

Fixing the last parts of the first price has to be done in an elegant fashion.

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!

Battle of Lund

It was a time since I last updated. I blame the hot summer!

The battle of Lund is one of the biggest tournaments every year, and also a qualifier for the Iron Moot. I went there with big dream, bringing the same pair as usual; pMadrak and eMadrak.

pMadrak
Earthborn, Mulg, Pyre troll, Runebearer
2xWarders, Krielstone with ua
Janissa and a fell caller hero

eMadrak
Impaler, Pyre
Fennblades+ua, full kriel boat, max burrowers, krielstone+ua, warders
Fell caller, Stone scribe chronicler

Game 1
Vs a troll player with Runes of War and pGrissel with Longriders on a non kill box scenario. He chose Runes and i dropped eMadrak. I couldn't really drop pMadrak on the wide scenario. I put up my fenns on one side, kriels on the other, and the rest up center. He goes first moves the brick up centrally, his flanking runeshapers ran up.

Runes of war on outflank

I felt pretty confident. My fens threats further than the runeshapers can throw, and my kriels are many and steady. The flanks felt good. The question was what do to about the center, try to break through or just jam and go for scenario. I went for both! On my second turn, everything charged, my urrowers with blood fury, and killed many of the runeshapers and the axer.

With the flanks dead, pDoomy went for killing the fury support in my list and let mulg trample over my burrowers to my beasts. One was just out of reach but my pyre died. Then the game went grindy. I did my best to kill his beasts and he killed some of my troops. In the end, I won by killing doomy and taking 5 scenario points. I was of to a great start in the tournament.

Legion on incursion. The left flag, behind the forest was
the one to remain

Game 2
A new acquaintance, Henrik, brought vayl2 and her happy dragonspawn. The scenario was incursion and he got to go first. This game was unfortunately over quite quickly. We both aimed for one flag each, the left flag was covered by a pretty large forest and an obstruction for me. The wrong flag disappeared and i could not the little bit of luck needed to get back into the game. In hindsight i should have offered a lot more fennblades to him so that that flag would have been more difficult to take, but the terrain really made it difficult for me.

Game 3
Last game of day one and a Retribution player with rahn and issyria. Again, the scenario was not a killbox one, so i really had to drop eMadrak. He dropped Issyria with hyperion and some units. He had many guys, but i had a lot more.

He wins the roll to go first but choses a side, letting me go first. I do not mind that at all. He deploys his Hyperion in the center first. I do the usual with fennblades and kriels flanking and the rest in the center. He puts his archers against my fens and his shieldwall guys against my kriels.

I start the game by running everything up, not burrowing my burrowers. On his turn, most thing run, but the hyperion takes a shot at something but misses. On my second turn i run a few guys into the zones to contest them, and burrow the pygs. My pyre also gets four guys with his blast. Issyria feats on her turn and shoots quite a number of my guys away.

So, time to retaliate, my warders charge the hyperion, fenns charges archers, kriels charge shield wall guys, Madrak throws his axe at hyperion for a lot of damage and feats. Blood furied pygs deals with the scrapping of hyperion and the game is looking good for me.

The last turns i go for a scenario win with dominating my own zone. When issyria tries to do the same, she got crit smited by my impaler and killed by my fell caller spray.

Game 4
Legion-Gurra, a nice guy from the capital whom I've played a couple of times now. However, every time with different match ups. Fourth game, and still no kill box. I have to drop eMadrak again, which i would have wanted to anyway. He drops pVayl which i had never faced before.

The game is very much one of threat distance assessment. We get to a position where my kriels cant charge his raek or deathstalkers, my fenns can charge, but probably not hit anything because my fell caller wants to buff my pyggs. What i did was to kriel bowl the raek and death stalkers, unfortunately not killing one of them. The fenns just jammed and put some damage on the beasts in my left zone and my center moved up to threat. I almost cleared the offensive zone and feel i have a good chance at the scenario this game.

However, pVayl feats and makes it harder for me, toeing with a carnivean in the zone i want to dominate. On my turn I think i will kill the carnivean, but drop it down to one hp after the turn after. Having placed madrak rather poorly, i get charged by two carniveans and die.

I could really have played this match better and won it on scenario. A little bit more luck against that bloody second carnivean or a crit smite to get the other carnivean knocked down would have won it too.

Game 5

I go up against cryx with horseshade and something else. it is finally a killbox scenario which is destruction, which makes me drop pMadrak, which is my drop against cryx mainly. He has satyxis raiders, tartarus, bane knights and witches. 

After my firstn

I get to go first and just run so that i can contest the zones even though the satyxis are crazy fast. They and the witches jam me up, and I barely get in the zone. The next turn, he clumps up to kill one objective while Goreshade hid behind a wall while Nighmare tried to hurt Mulg, although being at arm 23 and defence 15 over the wall made that problematic. I decided to feat and clear the most of his things using my warders, my earthborn and Madrak. That leave me Mulg, and what I think is a good chance of surfing to Goreshade3 with enough fury left to get it done. and Mulg did it!

Summary

Two losses against legion. Perhaps it is time to make place for Pendrake in my madrak list? It was a good tournament, although it seemed that some tables had problems with rather big terrain pieces, I guess it many times is a remnant from the warhammer times in Sweden, but hopefully it will be over in the future. 

Speed painting Circle

Last week, I tried to start painting my Circle that I bought over a year ago. As I still have a lot of Trolls on the painting table, I wanted to try some new techniques and paint much much faster than I usually do.
The circle i painted was a Feral, a Stalker, an Argus, a Winter argus, two units of stones and pKaya. In total, it took me about 5 hours. Drybrushing and inking was the main techniques, and it was fun to see it all come together so quickly.

The painted circle force.

Prize for the first Uppsala Summer Mangle!

This weekend I am running a 16 people tournament at Ungdomens Hus in Uppsala. I just completed the first prize. This summer sure will turn out a bit more swaggy for the lucky winner!