This was the first ever Weighted Dice (a store in Katrineholm) tournament and a chance to put my mark in history as the first ever winner or loser or something. The tournament was a SR 50 point death clock tournament limited to 24 players and 4 round, with a potential tie in the end.
I went with my pMadrak eMadrak pairing. This time though, the lists were a bit different, lets see if you can spot it:
pMadrak
-Runebearer, Mulg the Ancient, Earthborn Dire Troll, Pyre Troll
Janissa, Fell Caller, Fennblade Kithkar
Max Krielstone+Elder, Max Warders, Max Burrowers
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eMadrak faces of against eMadrak. The forest on my side
was really in the way. |
eMadrak
-Runebearer, Pyre troll, Impaler
Fell Caller, Viktor Pendrake
Max Krielstone+Ua, Max Warders, Max Warders, Max Fennblades+Ua, Max Burrowers, Swamp Gobbers.
Game 1
I am faced with a troll player. He brought Calandra EE and eMadrak. We both know we are going to drop eMadrak and that it is going to be terrible. We drop eMadrak and the game was just a grind. His eMadrak list differed from mine in that he had Mulg, an Axer and a feralgeist instead of a Pyre, Impaler, another warder unit. The scenario was Incoming.
Anyways. I get to go first and run with everything, there is a forest in the middle of the table, partly covering my zone which is a hassle the entire game, but I still try to go for my zone. He burrows and runs on his turn. So our pygs face of centrally, fenns face of on the left side, and warders face of on the right side.
On my next turn I go in with a few fennblades to bind him. He declogs and alphas with the burrowers. He also scores a first point in his zone. On my turn I place Warders and fenns for the feat, and manage to kill most of the things except for an important fennblade officer, my pygs also under perform on their first engage, I score a point on my turn. His feat turn is big, the fennblade officer I failed to kill kills six models and I get down on attrition and realise I have to play for time.
So I try to slow down the attrition pace of the game and gradually remove the fennblades on my side of the table forcing him to commit the axer, than mulg. Somehow, I manage to win on scenario, running in the fell caller, a stone scribe and a fennblade in his zone with him having 20 seconds left on the clock. I think that if he would have made quicker decisions with madrak in the last turns he would easily have won, but instead there was a lot of time lost on what to do with him even though it didn't matter.
Game 2
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| Mulg has just smashed Butcher3 |
Paired against Boxer, who played Butcher 2 and Butcher 3 on Rally Point. I am forced to drop pMadrak against the possibility of B3 and he drops B3 with Ruin, Devastator, IFP, Kossites, Nyss hunters and Doom reavers. He gets to go first and he positions his B3 across from my flag along with Ruin, the devastator on my right flank together with the reavers, nyss centrally and IFP on my left. I place my brick to go against B3 and my flag. Warders to my right and the kithkar on my left against the kossites coming.
Our first turns are uneventfull. He runs up, I move up and brick. On his second turn, he runs to jam me and places everything rather tightly. The positioning allows me to go for a rather easy assassination with Mulg on a butcher camping 3. I have to kill two IFP, one argus and a nyss to get there. So I go for it and Mulg delivers me the head of Butcher.
Game 3
After some pairing switching to not meet my brother I get to face Falkman and his new found legion horde. His pairing was pVayl/eVayl, the scenario was incursion. The table we played on had five pieces of terrain, two of which were linear obstacles which did not matter to the field, the other three were forests. So yeay. I have to drop eMadrak, he drops eVayl, a bit surprising to me, with a Scythean, Two ravagores, Two angelious, legionaires, the pot, spell martyr and a harrier.
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| Start of Falkmans first round on the three forest field. |
He wins the roll to go first but decides to give me the start and take the side where he can threat beyond the side flags behind forests, because you do not need eyes to see, apparently. I position my fenns to my left, Madrak centrally, my warders on my right. He places the legionares on my right along with one angelious, the rest is positioned centrally to the left.
I run forward with everything and burrow on my first turn, empty madrak and place the pyre animus on him. On his turn he positions behind the forests and uses his spell martyr to put icy grip on my fennblades, which was really not good for me. He measures very delicately to place Vayl outside the burrower range and then moves the legionares into the middle along with a scythean.
On my turn I pop the burrowers to kill of his scythean and some legionaires. Thanks to his measurement of Vayl I know that he positioned the scythean in the burrower threat range. The fennblades walk forward and do nothing, the pyre troll removes an intervening legionare to get to the scythean and my burrowers with beast lore, blood fury and the fell caller war cry kills the scythean with two models, some legionares and a beast handeler. I move forward on my left flank to contest the flag with a warder an my gobbers.
On his turn, he moves in the angelious on the left to kill some fennblades, with admonition on him, he will be able to move out of the way. The ravagores shoot and kill a warders, the legionares kill some pygs along with evayl and on the left side, the angelous kills a warder and refuges behind the forest.
I continue to move forward and try to do damage to the left angelious with my fenns with blood fury, but it doesn't succeed. On the right side, I run another warder in the forest, looking for something to kill. In the middle, I clear the flag and score with the pyre troll.
After this, the game goes rapidly in my favour, Falkman is not able to kill enough of my stuff and also make a mistake when he admonitions away from the left flag during my vengeance move. This lets me score up to three and after this, he goes for a self-assassination, but realises that the ravagore cannot attack vayl. So he flips the time over and lets me win with 5-1 in control points.
Game 4
With 3 players undefeated, I am paired with Olov, who also is undefeated, meaning that if Hugo, with his Pagani-Circle lists loses, this will be the final. Olov plays Butcher 3 and eSorcha. The scenario was outflank which was a real problem for me. I have to drop pMadrak, and he drops eSorcha with a Conquest, Deathstar, Nyss hunters, Great bears, Aiyana and Holt.
I get to go first, which is important. I place my brick centrally, my warders on my right and the kithkar on my left. Olov has placed his Conquest in the middle, he places the death star to my left and the nyss on my right.
On my first turn, I decide to run the burrowers and the rest, moving the brick up centrally and the burrowers against the left flank. Olov moves up, iron fleshed the death star, moves and zephyrs with the nyss to kill two burrowers and fishes for a crit with the conquest, he would have thrown three models but not too far, sure foot would also have helped me.
On my second turn, i burrow the pygs, move one warder into the right zone, and the kithlar into a forest on the right zone. He tries to remove the kithkar and the warder on his second turn, but doesn't succeed.
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I just dominated the right zone.
The kithkar in the forest contests on the left. |
My third turn offers an opportunity to potentially dominate the right zone. My pygs have to kill four nyss. There was one being iffy, needing nines with rerolls, but for the other i had two on each. I succeed to kill them, and charge the remaining one with warders. The brick moves to the right and i score 2 points. Olov on his turn goes for the attrition play and sorcha moves to freezing grip the warders, but fails. The conquest moves in and kills two warders. On the left side, the death star deals with the kitkhar and olov scores one point.
Here i was forced to make a decision. I saw an opportunity to surf to an emptied sorcha, or go for killing the conquest. After some minutes thinking, i went for the assassination. The warders did some damage to conquest, madrak moved to get sorcha in his control and feated. Mulg moved and started killing, no toughs from Olov on three dudes, i get in behind the conquest and I'm starting to realise i will not make it. I kill two great bears before aborting and getting the last five attacks on the conquest. With my ps 20 i leave it at 7 boxes, after only rolling 6.
From here, Olov starts getting up on attrition killing mulg and all but one warder. I kill the conquest with madrak and the pygs continue to battle the nyss. The earthborn and Janissa moves into the other zone to contest. Olov has a difficult time removing anything, the janissa wall and her force lock on a death star trooper makes them difficult to hit and damage. He plinks away the stone instead. I manage to dominate once more before olov managed to assassinate madrak.
The decision to go for an assassination instead of the conquest decided the game. It was the wrong decision in what turned out to be the final.
Summary
3-1 and second place. I am quite satisfied even though i misplayed the final. I really like my lists and the inclusion of burrowers in the brick is actually not bad. If stuff gets close, the burrowers go to mat 8 with carnage. It was a fun tournament.
Axis
