In both cases my Specialists was the the Satyxis Raider Captain. I really have not hashed out what I want in my sideboard at this point, however, if I ran into a list that had a major KD effect, I thought it was good to be able to swap her in to make sure my Raiders can still do their job effectively. It didn’t come up in the event, but it turns out there was a Barnabus player in the midst, so it might have been important had it come up. My lists continue to develop as we arrive closer to the event. The major news on this front is that my Terminus list will change for the first time since it’s inception, moving the Bane Thralls out in favor of the Bane Knights reducing the need for Saxon and allowing me to get a Pistol Wraith in the list. I REALLY like this switch, however for this event the Knights were not ready, and as such I went with my standard kit. For the Skarre list, I find that I have MUCH more freedom at 50 than 35, as the Kraken is quite restricting at the lower point levels, however the list really starts to hum when I can put the Raiders in, and give the DJ a bit of a buffer. Onto the opening round…

Round 1: vs Mercs
Scenario: Close Quarters
Opposing List:
MacBain (!!!!!!!!!!!)
Mangler
Nomad
Kayazy Assassins w/ Underboss
Nyss Hunters
Boomhowlers (Specialist swap for WE&SJ)
Kelll Bailoch
Rhupert
eEiryss
Stannis Brocker
Wyshnylrr

Recap: For those of you that have been to, or frequent, The Temple, Charlie is a fixture at their events, and everyone should have the Charlie experience at least one time when playing there! It was my first time playing him in a competitive event, as such I was excited to dial it up in what I expected would be a really great game against an animated opponent.

Charlie was only playing one list, as any MacBain player would appreciate, so my list selection was made a bit easier. I REALLY wanted to play Skarre in this matchup, however, I could not resist all those juicy souls w/ Terminus, so I opted to play big T. At the announcement of specialists, I was not opting to play any, and Charlie decided to swap Boomhowler in for Wrong Eye and Snapjaw. More souls for me, but an interesting choice that would change the ebb and flow of the game.

I won the deployment roll and opted to go first, setup Terminus front and center, with Banes on his L and MechThralls on his R, Satyxis AD out front in the center, and the Seether was deployed w/ the Mech Thralls on the R, with support in the rear. First turn I cast Malediction as per usual and pushed everything to the middle of the board, but not too far forward, all to about the 24” mark. MacBain setup in the rear of his force, with the battlegroup on his R (my L) flanked by Kell, Boomhowlers middle R (as he looked at the board) and the Kayazy middle L and Nyss far L (all my R) supported by Stannis and Eiryss. he pushed Eyriss forward to cover supported by Stannis, and Kayazy were a bit tentative, with Boomhowlers pressing forward supported by the two Jacks, all camping the scoring flag on his side of the board. Kell fired a couple worthless shots. Iron Agression was the Nomad and Fail Safe on the Mangler and lastly the Nyss pulled an extreme flanking maneuver pushing to my far R.

I took the dice back and opted to not feat this turn as I really couldn’t crash home and with the 4+ Tough from Boomies (the only thing really in range) I didn’t want to waste my feat in a game w/ so many tough rolls. As such, I charge/ran the Raiders into melee, and was able to get two into combat with Eiryss, losing a third to a Defensive Strike from Stannis (bastard!). However a CMA from the whips was able to catch dice and put Eiryss into the dirt. On my R side I decided to run the MechThralls at the Nyss, and stalemate them on the far side of the board, and moved my Banes up to square off against the Boomies that were now locked in melee w/ the Raiders. Charlie started his turn and contemplated for a bit (presumably considering his Feat), and ultimately decided not to do it. Instead he would spend his turn to wade thru my Raiders, cried 4+ Tough again on his turn, pushed his Jacks up to support the Boomhowlers with each heavy flanking a side of the unit. Stannis pressed forward to clear MechThralls, and the Kayazy continued to lurk in the rear, presumably saving their mini feat for late game shenanigans. Nyss cleared MechThralls but were unable to do a lot of damage due to the spread formation and engagement. Important note, Charlie ran out of time on his turn and was not able to get Rupert’s full activation done, but opted not to use his extension for one half solo activation (a wise choice), but that also meant no +1 DEF and Terror for Boomhowler.

With MacBain not feating, I decided it was my turn to feat with Dragon’s Call. I activated Terminus put the feat up and camped the flag preparing to score my first scenario point and set the rest of my force to work. I used remaining Raiders to grab a couple, and now with the charge lanes clear, I used Saxon to give pathfinder to the Banes to allow them to crash home on the Boomhowlers. Then activated the Seether who took out Stannis, and the turned on the MechThrall machine w/ the Necrosurgeon making three new Thralls and charging into the Nyss again. All in all, I was able to score a point w/ dominating my own flag, and had gathered a half dozen souls to push my ARM to 30. Charlie stated at the beginning of his turn that he would be using his extension. He upkept both spells and gave three focus to the Nomad. He proceeded to work thru Banes and get them down to about half. Then took the Kayazy and charged the Seether getting 6 into melee range, and taking it down to just a few boxes. The Nyss continued to work thru the MechThralls, and tried to close on the Flag to contest but were unable to get into range. Then MacBain feated and marked 7 models: Rhupert, Boomhowler, Underboss, 3 Trolls, and one other Kayazy.

With my feat turn now expired and MacBain safely out of range, it appeared as if Charlie had successfully weathered my feat. Looking over the board I noticed that my Seether was in b2b with a half dozen Kayazy, had no movement, and I was facing his rear arc. I considered the options and realized I had an opportunity to live the dream with Annihilator!!!! First time in the multi year history of playing Terminus I was going to be able to blast this spell off. Since I had a pile of Focus, I was casting at an effective 8, needing an 11, so I didn’t boost and hit, SCORE!!! 6 souls from Annihilator!!!! Charlie didn’t appreciate what just hapened but for those Terminus players out there you can imagine how glorious moment was for me. I then decided to abandon the flag and force MacBain’s hand  by pushing Terminus into easy threat range, moved up Terminus and engaged the Trolls by charging the Nomad and taking a chunk out of him. I continued to use the McThrall machine to hold off the Nyss for yet another turn. I moved the Withershadow up to defend the flag if it became an issue, brought Darrage Wrathe forward to cast Beyond Death. Tartarus was finally able to get into the mix, threshered and did some damage to the Mangler and added a couple Banes to the unit. With the jacks now exposed the remaining Banes scrapped the two heavy jacks. Turned the dice over now that I was firmly in control of the game.

MacBain decided to brace for impact as the Event round timer was ticking low. The Nyss were starting to break thru the McThralls, as they only had a few left, however, the left one on the board, and were unable to shoot down the Necrosurgeon thanks to Sac Pawn. The Withershadow ensure that at least for this turn they would not be able to score the zone no matter what they did. Boomhowlers failed their Abomination check at the start of the turn so were useless this turn, and at that MacBain camped the rest and turned the dice back over.

Recap: In the second round I played someone I had not previously known, C, who had taken a leave of absence from the game after MKI, and has recently come back to the tourney scene. He was playing Doomy and Gunnbjorn; and had already played Gunnbjorn in the first round. Given this was a Divide and Conquer SR, I presumed he would be playing his Hoarluk list; as such I thought it was not the best idea to put Terminus back on the table with so many hard hitting heavies in his build and access to Wild Agression, a SPD buff feat and all the tools that Doomshaper has. Thus, I opted to reach for eSkarre. Turns out I made the right decision.

I lost the starting roll, and my opponent opted for me to go first. That is a sign to me that he was unsure of what I was capable of and wanted to see my deployment. I deployed my Kraken to the L center of my deployment zone, with the Nightwretch on the centerline, Skarre next to it on the R of the centerline, next to the Necrosurgeon and the support pieces bringing up the rear with the Pistol Wraiths deployed on either end of my setup on the front of my deployment line. My Raiders were AD out front of my deployment to the R, and DJ in front of the Kraken. My opponent had an obstruction out front of his deployment zone which made for interesting choices. He deployed all his beasts to his R (my L) meaning all his beasts were on one side of the board; it appeared his strategy was to force me to fight all of his army with half of mine, and use the obstruction to protect and wall him off from half the board.

On the opening turn I ran forward, decided to use the obstruction to allow my Raiders to advance up the field deep and own one side of the board and allow my feat to buy me two turns of fighting his main army and then allow my Raiders to close around the obstruction. I ran the PWs forward, and pushed the Kraken as far forward as I could. I didn’t press DJ that far forward for fear of an early feat and eating Mulg to the face, so I kept him parallel with Kraken. I could not afford to lose a heavy with that many big beasts across the table. Skarre put Admonition on the Death Jack and Death Ward on the Kraken. My opponent then activated to respond and moved Doomy to behind the Obstruction putting Refuge on Mulg and dumping Fury onto the Stone, and which ran in support behind him. The beasts ran forward making an almost diagonal line to from my L to my R but ending on the centerline of the table pointing to his side of the table edge.

I took the dice for turn 2, and he was clearly out of melee threat range, but as I looked closer Doomshaper had no Fury on him. He had moved forward enough to be in range of my guns, and while my LOS was not immediately accessible, I could move and garner shots to possibly end the game right now, or at least put a lot of pressure on him. I gave three Focus to Kraken, and one to Nightwretch. I activated the node first and ran him into range of Doomy. I then activated Skarre, and arced Blackspot onto Doomy and succeeded. Then I feated and put DJ, Skarre, both Pistol Wraiths, and Doomy under the feat. I wasn’t in range of the beasts w/ Skarre or I would have tagged Mulg. Next I activated the PW farthest from Doomy so I could move thru everything in the way to get a bead on the Warlock. He tagged him twice and put about 5 damage on him, and my opponent took the opportunity to use Protective Fit and moved Mulg toward my army also in threat RNG of Kraken. As such, I opted to switch gears. In the event that the assassination effort failed, and now that I could reach Mulg I decided I would take him off the table. I activated Ragman and used Death Field, then put the Kraken to work charging him to within his 4” melee RNG. Unfortunately the dice didn’t cooperate and Mulg was still standing there. I had to start damage control, so the last Pistol Wraith activated and Death Chilled the Earthborn. The Raiders ran around the obstruction to threaten the stones next turn and force Doomy’s hand from both sides, but I extended the unit out and used two Raiders to jam up Mulg as best I could, by running them round the near side of the obstruction. Lastly I ran the DJ up into the battlegroup’s grill to block Warlock in. I wasn’t as pleased with my turn I’d hoped I would have been, but I turned the dice back to him.

My opponent decided to focus the entirety of his efforts on taking out the Kraken. With Mulg still standing he was able to heal and go to town on Kraken. Doomy upkept Rampager on Mulg, and healed him, then moved to a far point on the board, to protect himself from the followup turn with DJ. Mulg activated first, spent his initial attacks to clear the Raiders, then used Goad to move into melee reach of Kraken. He bought attacks and had taken the the Colossal to below half. Mauler activated pug Rage on himself and charged the Kraken. However, the dice didn’t cooperate and he left the Colossal with a few boxes; justice for what happened when I tried to take down Mulg! The Bomber and Axer ran to protect the Warlock, and prevented any direct assault on him.

Now onto turn 3, I was fortunate to still have the Kraken standing. Skarre gave three focus to both the Colossal and DJ, upkeeping all three spells thanks to Blood Trade. This was going to be Deathjack’s turn to shine, but first I had to get the Kraken back into action. I started w/ the Necrotech and was able to repair all damaged systems, then Ragman put Deathfield back up. I started with Death Jack, who was next to Mulg, and was able to put him in the dirt easily. Then he used Perdition to move into melee range of Mauler, using the rest of his attacks was able to kill his second heavy of the turn! Now it was time for Kraken to mop up, with his systems back in action, he was able to scrap the Earthborn, taking out the third heavy of the turn. The Raiders now were able to circle the Obstruction and take out all the unit members of the stone, save for the stone itself. Lastly, w/ no threat to Skarre, I moved her up to dominate the Flag taking a CP. My opponents position was clearly compromised at this point. He took the dice, and tried to manage damage control as best he could. He used the Bomber to charge the DJ, but thanks to Admonition. He followed up w/ a second charge from the Axer, and did some damage to character ‘jack. However, it was minimal; other good news was he continues to contest the zone, and camped enough Fury to make an assassination run possibly tricky if I wasn’t careful.

Taking the dice back, I gave the Kraken two focus, DJ had two Souls which turned into Focus and I allocated another so that he was full on Focus again. I again upkept Death Ward and Black Spot using Blood Trade then cycled Admonition to Skarre, in case things went wrong and continued to camp the zone. I activated the Necrotech again to continue to heal the Kraken. Ragman cast Death Field again and Kraken then activated performing a two handed throw on the Bomber into Doomshaper. Seas of Fate made hitting a breeze. As such I was able to buy two attacks with focus on the Axer and put him into the dirt. Then DJ activated moving up to Doomy who was now KD, and despite three transfers and a tough roll was able to dispatch the Warlock and end the game.

Recap: At the final table I faced a formidable opponent that I have had the opportunity to play before in my SR tour of the Northeast, Derrick; many of you may have run into him if you have been on the tourney scene yourselves. He is a strong player who has come within a game of qualifying for Masters at TempleCon that past few years, moreover his main faction is Cryx and his main Warcasters are the two that I am currently playing! As such I was in for a hard contest for sure. In my list selection, Derrick had suicided into his last round list, by playing his pMakeda list in the opening two rounds, therefore he was forced to play his eHexy, which in all honesty worked out to his favor, as it was a reasonably strong answer to anything I put on the table. I thought it over intently, and given his access to Black Spot and Ashes to Ashes, along with his feat and his beast load out, I thought Terminus was a poor choice again, and opted to reach for eSkarre for the first time at a final table.

I won the starting roll and opted to go first. We were on the same table that I was playing on the round before, and again my opponent chose the side with the obstruction protecting their deployment zone. I set up with Kraken to one side opposite of the obstruction and Skarre to the R of the Colossal and the Nighwretch to the the Kraken’s L, all the support around the battle group. I AD the Raiders to the L side opposite of the obstruction this time and DJ directly across from the obstruction. Derrick set his Warlock behind the obstruction, and the beasts all to the one side of said obstruction as my last opponent did (on my L), and had the Posse take the R side of the board with the Thrullg.

On the opening turn I pushed the Raiders to over midline, with Deathjack near them, and running the PW’s to just behind the Raiders flanking Kraken; also ran the Nighwretch into the mix. Skarre once again put Death Ward on the Colossal and Admonition on Death Jack. Derrick took the dice and decided he was going to grab ahold of this game with both hands, sent his bonded Sentry out front, put Locker on him, and ran the Posse out around to the side of the obstruction (my R). Then activated his other two heavies moving them to threaten counter assault on anything that came near the Sentry; Hexy then went into action, started to sling spells at the Raiders. He missed an unboosted Black Spot, then opted to use his feat to pour two Ashes to Ashes into the Raiders, getting them down to about half. Lastly the Reivers took two CRA shots killing two more Satyxis, leaving only four in the unit.

I took the dice back, having my Raiders thoroughly decimated, thankfully w/ Inspiration RNG of Skarre so command wasn’t an issue. I knew this was my feat turn, and I wanted to return the favor of moving a unit off the table; I gave three focus to Kraken and Deathjack each, then moved the Nightwretch forward into threat range and activated my Warcaster. Arced Black Spot into the Reivers successfully, then feated, protecting DJ, Skarre, the Nightwretch, and both Pistol Wraiths. I set the PWs to work, and the dice didn’t cooperate as I had hoped, ‘only’ getting 5 Reivers between the two of them. Kraken did decent, taking out another 5 Reivers thanks to Black Spot. The remaining Raiders popped mini-feat and charged, three at the Sentry, and the last one at a remaining Reiver, was careful to leave room for Deathjack. They ignored the shield and did some damage to make DJ’s job easier, also took out another Reiver and a Pain Giver. Deathjack then charged the Sentry and took him out with his initials and one extra swing. Then he used Perdition to advance into the Gladiator and swung one more time doing a healthy amount of damage, grilling both the Bronzeback and the Gladiator. Feeling good about my turn I returned the dice to my opponent. There wasn’t a lot for him to do this turn thanks to my feat; the Reivers were decimated, Pain Givers were fleeing due to the Abomination nearby and the Posse were not in range of anything, so they ran to camp the zone and threaten my support. Bronzeback used Trainwreck to kill some Raiders, and then Derrick put down his dice.

Turn 3 I knew the Bronzeback was going to take DJ, but not before I got his Gladiator. I gave Kraken three as he was going to have to engage the Posse and Thrullg, I didn’t give any to DJ as he was sitting on a free one from the Soul he garnered in the last turn by killing the Sentry, plus his customary two. I was comfortable with that being enough, and decided to keep the rest on Skarre to avoid some squirrely Ashes to Ashes coming my way. DJ dispatched of the Gladiator, leaving Hexy with only one beast. Kraken successfully engaged the Posse, killing three, plus a successful Kill Shot on the Thrullg taking him off the table. Now he was full on Corpse tokens, and ready to be a beast the rest of the game. On my opponents turn, as I expected he charged the Bronzeback into Deathjack, I triggered Admonition, to move him backwards, out from behind the obstruction, and Derrick wisely used his Counter Charge ability to make sure he was able to scrap Death Jack. He did indeed take out my character jack, however an important interaction there was now the Bronzeback was not behind the obstruction and in threat RNG of the Kraken thanks to the Admonition and Counter Charge swap. Derrick was aware so he swung his two Gatorman posse to the side of Kraken to use their medium bases to block his path to the Bronzeback. To make matters worse he was able to get the Agonizer with Spiritual Affliction up near enough to the Kraken to deny him focus on the upcoming turn. It was officially a chess match with the Bronzeback and Kraken being the keys with the tournament on the line.

I took the dice back, and still had both Pistol Wraiths and the Nightwretch who was now engaged by Hexeris. Bronzeback was sitting in cover left by DJ, and Kraken had 16 boxes of Posse in front of him. I upkept Death Ward, and couldn’t allocate to the Colossal, so I decided not to use Blood Trade and gave my Necrosurgeon a chance to catch up on healing Skarre. The Bronzeback was so close but so far. I wanted to use the Pistol Wraiths to kill the Posse, but they were engaged and had a ton of boxes. I did have some souls to spend but it was going to be ugly. Instead I thought it better to use their activation to try and Death Chill the Titan who was a healthy defense himself, however I was close enough to use Gunfigheter on him. Before I started shooting, I noticed that I had one Raider left on the board and she was w/in melee of the Bronzeback, so I decided to take her swing first in the event I was able to get the crit, he would be KD. Turns out it was an astute play, as I got the crit and KD him. I used my first Pistol Wraith to Death Chill him, and he was effectively neutered. Now that he was under control I decided to not be greedy and risk Skarre to kill the Posse, who were at the far extent of her threat RNG. The remaining Pistol Wraith took out the Agonizer and Kraken’s activation was used to remove both remaining Posse.  Lastly I activated Skarre and cycled Admonition onto her. The game was feeling firmly within my grasp at this point. Derrick activated, and decided to back his Bronzeback up behind the obstruction and heal him. He scrapped the Nightwretch, and took a boosted Ashes to Ashes onto the Pistol Wraiths and was able to take both of them out; a successful recovery turn for Skorne, the game was clearly not over.

We were pacing well, but I knew the Round timer was starting to wane, so again I gave Kraken three, and did not use Blood Trader to upkeep as Necrosurgeon wasn’t getting good rolls on the heals. Kraken moved to destroy the objective and allow me to start scoring points. I finally got a roll from the Necrosurgeon and had Skarre nearly back to full health. Hexy’s hand was now going to be forced, the Bronzeback ran back into the game and healed some more and was getting back up to full at this point. Derrick ran some remaining schwag into Kraken’s way making it hard for him to reach Bronzeback without removing them; also contesting the zone.

This, all of a sudden, was a hugely important turn, if I wasn’t able to kill the two models in the way, I was in danger of losing a big chunk of my Kraken to a Bronzeback charge which I may well not be able to recover from. I upkept both spells with Blood Trader and gave three to Kraken. I measured CNTL RNG with Skarre and had both models in her gun and spell range. She stood still and shot one remaining Reiver and used Perdition to remove the last Pain Giver. Kraken now had a runway to the Bronzeback, which allowed me to successfully put the Titan into the dirt. Another CP, and Skarre was safely behind her Colossal. With only about 4 models left on the board, Hexy decided to go out in style and charge the Kraken, but alas couldn’t scratch the surface. He was standing in front of the Colossal with no Fury and nothing to do with it even if he had some. With my turn being a formality thanks to CPs and his Warlock flapping in the breeze, Derrick conceded a really well fought game, and I took down my second tournament in as many weeks!

In review of the event and my games, for the second week in a row the 2013 scenarios feel much more prevalent, in each game, than they did in 2012 especially if you’re playing a control/attrition style. That game plan dictates that the game will typically become close and late game the CPs start to go fast and furious when each side runs out of contesting pieces. This seems to be the result of Casters/Locks not being able to contest themselves.

I still have not been able to get into the flow of reinforcements. The Raider Captain, as I noted earlier, was the only piece I had listed and I’d probably leave her in for sure, but I have to find 8 more points to include. I’m tinkering around with it a bit more and trying to tailor each sideboard to what I feel like the lists ‘poor’ matchups are. For example, I don’t like playing my eSkarre list against a competent ranged list, and would typically reach for Terminus; however, if I’m forced into that matchup, I’d like to have some help in that regard, so a Bokur is likely to find himself into the sideboard given that weakness. I think in future builds even for my other factions, I’m going to try to build my sideboards that way, and while that may seem obvious, it’s a bit more of an art than you might think if you haven’t contemplated this yet. Considering what you would remove from the list is ultimately as important, possibly even more important, than what you would slide in. It’s not reinforcements and it kept feeling like it was when I was building it out. I’m not sure it’s going to be as big a player in the SR scene as it might feel right now, but learning how to manage it is going to important, because TOs are going to take it out for a test drive for sure.

In regards to my on the table work, eSkarre has come along nicely. There are two big contradictions I have found with what is generally thought to be true about her. First, she feels a lot like playing one of my Circle ‘locks, there are MANY things that can clip her on the feat turn. She is really a great Warcaster for sure, but I think the feat gives people a false sense of reality and typically if your using her abilities you’re likely doing half the work for your opponent by bleeding her down. Players running their own models in front of her, and ricochet damage into her, sprays, throws, now Tramples (as of the newest errata). Moreover, it seems to be a sense of pride for players to take ill advised assassination attempts on her during the feat simply for bragging rights. Typically on that turn she is going to have about ⅓ of her health gone by definition, so a moderately designed assassination effort will do the deed in many cases. Second, I have read a lot that people feel she loses a bit at 50; to me, with the Kraken, she actually gains quite a bit. Perhaps her traditional build in the pre-Colossal era, if you’re playing the character jack spam, she might be better off at 35, but given the state of the game today, I really would encourage players to try her with Kraken if you haven’t already. My list really hums at 50, and I’m having much more success with her at 50 than I originally thought. Fair warning tho, she scales up quite a bit from other Cryx casters, and she might be a noob stomper, but competent players will find her easy to dispatch if you’re not super careful.

Regarding Terminus, I feel the new Kill Box Artifice raises his game for 2013. He was going to be a player as a meta tilter anyway, but knowing you have to essentially always be in his threat range is a scary proposition. You will likely see him more this year, IMHO.  Additionaly, while you don’t see it in this BR, the inclusion of the Bane Knights over the Thralls has been an eye opening experience, and the Pistol Wraith inclusion is just gravvy. The list flows much better than it used to and the ancillary benefit of a huge threat range (16”!!!) that I honestly didn’t see untill I had them on the table, is just redonk. They don’t support the list the way the Thralls did, but these guys have a much bigger role to play game in and game out. They do much more than bat cleanup, and give me a very strong win condition that I did not previously have. The PW also is another mechanism to mitigate real threats to Terminus, not to mention adding a magic weapon.

All in all it was a sweet event, with good comp, and it’s always good to see Grant and the crew at Temple. Looking forward to taking my win streak to TC and press my luck! Hope to see everyone on February 1,2, and 3rd….

A.