For the second time in as many months DOGC found themselves crowned victorious at the end of a hard fought team tournament. This time it was the prestigious New England Team Tournament; the long standing New England Privateers event, the first of it’s kind and dates back nearly ten years to the very beginnings of Warmachine. The victorious team was comprised of Anthony Ferraiolo, Alex Buganski, and Shane York; below are the summary battle reports of the games that lead them to the title…

Coming off their team tourney win in New Jersey, one of the three players from the top team in Jersey would not be available for this event, Dan Berger, and it was the first time in a year Bergz would not participate as part of DOGC’s top team. Alex Buganski would step up and take his place alongside Shane York and Anthony Ferraiolo. Shane and Anthony were winners at the event in North Jersey, both going X-0 at that event, however it was hard to imagine them pulling that feat off again, so Alex would have to step his game up if they were going to win back to back team tournaments. Here is a look at the lists:

Anthony’s Lists (captain):

eMorvahna – Feral, Woldguardian, Ravagers (full) w/ UA and WA, Skinwalkers with UA, Wolves of Orboros w/ UA, Shifting Stones w/ UA and Gallows Groves (x2)

Kromac – Stalker (x2), Pureblood, Gorax, Wilder, Woldstalkers (x2), Shifting Stones w/ UA, Gallows Grove, Lord of the Feast, Swamp Gobbers

On his lists: “this was my first competitive event with eMorvahna, and I’m doing things much differently with her than what most have seen win on the national scene. No Stalkers, no Reeves, no Warwolfs, no Gorax, no second unit of stones. It’s really a completely different list; however my teammates gave me confidence that I’m on the right track. For me this is about taking full advantage of the Feat, and setting the line of engagement up the field, and using all of her abilities to put my opponent in a discouraged position in scenario while always threatening assassination. Since I was playing eMorvy for the first time competitively, I thought it best to make sure I had the Warlock I was most confident in with me, and that’s Kromac. His build was tried and true down in Jersey, and he has been a staple of my competitive pairings since I attended TempleCon last year; plus he fits her weak spot against Cryx better than anything I can put on the table.”

Alex’s Lists (1st Lieutenant):

eStryker – Ol’ Rowdy, Stormclad, Squire, Stormblades w/ UA and Gunner (1), Precursor Knights (full) w/ UA, Black 13th, Stormblade Captain (x2), Junior, Madelyn Corbeau

eCaine – Centuirion, Squire, Stomblades w/ UA and Gunners (2), ATGM w/ UA, Rangers, Junior, Arlan, Reinholdt, Eyriss, Ayianna and Holt

On his lists: “I wanted two obvious assassination casters so that people would have to take into consideration that I could kill them from across the board. My lists were designed to be able to attrition and take scenario or switch gears and open holes for the assassination . That was why I went with the units I did. They can deal with both infantry and heavies. They hit hard and they have high MAT. I also wanted to be able to support my army apart from my casters which is why I went with the solos I did. Also, always having my opponent worried about assassination lets me focus on scenario”

Shane’s Lists (2nd Lieutenant):

Rask (tier) – Wrastler, Bull Snapper, Bog Trogs (full) x3, Bog Trogs (min) x1, Croak Hunter x5, Witch Doc x2, Totem Hunter

Barnabus – Spitter x3, Posse (full) x2, Bog Trogs (full), Thrullg, Witch Doc

On his lists: “Most Blindwater lists have issues against mass weaponmaster so I felt Rask could shore up that weakness as well.  Since Rask with CMA’s and Fury can handle Gargossals I decided to skew Barnabus”

With that settled, now to see how the dice rolls went…

Round 1: vs Game On

Scenario: Supply and Demand

Synopsis: The team we faced was from a meta in Maine, and in their pre match huddle they saw nothing in the pairings that made them feel they wanted to Feat, especially in the first round. As such, both teams rolled off and neither team featead.

In the Captains match, Anthony was facing off against another Circle player sporting Kromac, and he decided to drop eMorvahna feeling she is strongest the mirror match. She was able to set the line of engagement deep across the board. The retaliation was limited on turn 2, and when turn 3 was over Ghetorix and the Stalker were both dead, leaving Kromac with only one heavy and already bedhind on scenario being locked out of the zone. On the next turn eMorvahana was able to Feat and create an overwhelming board imbalance taking over scenario. Kromac made a last ditch effort to counter Feat and destroy as many things as possible, however it was a blaze of glory as he was killed on the following sequence resulting in a table wipe for Anthony and max CPs. Strong start.

Shortly thereafter 1st Lieutenant match, Alex was closing out his game as well. eStryker never got his hands dirty in his match versus Skorne. He was able to take most of the infantry off the board with ranged attacks on turn 1 and 2. Then as Mammoth attempted to keep scenario alive, however the Stormclad and Ol’ Rowdy were there to answer. In response Molik Karn took out the Stormclad but Rowdy proved too much for him as well, leaving the B13th to clear the remainder of the zone, and declare scenario victory. With the match already one, both players turned to see how Shane was fairing.

In the 2nd Lietanants’s match Shane was matched up against Cygnar. His opponent was playing Stryker2, a list we are all intimately familiar with as Alex plays him A LOT!  Shane liked Barnabus shooting in this match up. It gives lots of options on ways to get to Stryker. I was able to hold him at bay with some water in the zone funnelling his troops into my Barnabus shooting list. The Bog Trogs ambushed in and killed his Stormclad which was a huge boon for the Minions. With the Turtles shooting able to whittle down the Cygnar troops, they were forced into a last ditch assassination. With that failing and Stryker no longer in base with Rowdy, Shane was able to feat and have Barnabus close the deal; DOGC sweeps the opening round and advances.

Round 2: vs Regular Team

Scenario: Incursion

Synopsis: In what would ultimately be their toughest match of the day, the DOGC would face off against some familiar and unfamiliar foes that they had faced last year NETT. While the team name was the same, only two members were returning to pair off against each other this year, one on each side; Anthony and Andrew.

In the 2nd Lieutenants match Shane was pitted in a tough matchup drawing Khador eButcher Doom Reaver spam. Shane had faced off against the 6 unit version before and felt like his Rask list would do well there; however his opponent had 9 units (yes, that’s not a typo!). There was a large obstruction on one board edge. Luck was going to be a factor in this one and both players knew the roll to go first was key. Shane’s opponent won the roll and got well past the flags by turn two. Shane had banked on the side without the obstruction staying put to contest him on scenario and had it well cleared before it disappeared! There wasn’t much he could to hold eButcher back. Ultimately Khador won on scenario but only had 21 Doomreavers left, as Shane had killed 35 of them and dismounted Fenris while keeping his Berserker disrupted.  It wasn’t the win he was hoping for but was a better showing than he thought when the luck factors didn’t go his way. With that he turned to his two teammates to see if they could bail him out.

The 1st Lieutenants game was winding down at that point, and Alex looked to be in a strong position. This game wanting to take the pressure off of his Divide and Conquer requirements, he dropped eCaine in this game vs pButcher. At first the matchup seemed like a poor one for eCaine, however at second glance, Butcher could not get his army across the table fast enough, as the Cygnarian gun line was able to eat the units coming at him, while Eyriss was able to keep Beast disrupted and at bay. When the gap finally closed, the Precursors were able to get a bead on Beast, use their mini feat and scrap the character jack swing the game heavily in Cygnar’s favor. However there was still a Spriggan lurking, to which the the ATGM pushed him off a flag to allow Cygnar to score again. Caine then spent two turns clearing out the remaining Winter Guard, and leaving only a few Khadorian pieces on the battlefield. On the next turn Butcher came forward and used his Feat to scrap the Centurion but Eyriss nearby prevented him from scoring. Then Caine was able to shoot Holt off the table forcing Ayianna to flee allowing another CP to be scored, and the game be won on scnario. Alex had even the match at one game a piece, however looking at Anthony’s table the situation was just not good.

It’s fitting the captains match would be the deciding factor in this one. Anthony and Andrew had faced off last year in the final round of NETT and that was a pretty lopsided match that left Andrew eager for redemption. He advised after the match was over that if DOGC had feated out of the matchup he was going to feat back into it as he wanted to take down big A. Looking at the scene late in the match Anthony, playing eMorvahna, had lost nearly all of his army, down to about a dozen models total on the board, and what was even more grim news was that he had already used his Feat, so this was really it. Andrew, playing Saeryn, however had nearly all his pieces still in play, including all of his heavies who were all still fully functional and barely touched. Scenario was not in play yet, however it was definitely late in the game. Saeyrn was walled off by her beasts between herself and eMorvahna, with about a foot and a half of space between them. She was camping a Fury, with Banishing Ward up on herself and under the effects of Tenacity thanks to a nearby Shredder. This was likely the last turn for eMorvy and spectators began to surround the table as this match had run long, Anthony knew that it was time to put together the most qualified assassination run he could. After a good 3-4 minute pause, Anthony put the pieces together and went to work. Using the Stones to Teleport the Feral into an Angelius, who warped Strength and threw it at Saeyrn, successfully knocking her down. Then the damaged Woldguardian and lone remaining Skinwalker cleared a path for Morvahna to get within spell shot range of Saeryn. Morvahna activated moved to draw the best line she could on Saeyrn; and after a judge ruling in favor of eMorvahna, she was able to draw LOS. First cast a Purify to remove Banishing Ward and two Sunder Spirits later Saeryn (who had taken some damage earlier) was dead! A real nail biter to close this match out, and advance DOGC. These teams did not know it at the time, but they would go on to finish first and second in the standings.

Round 3: vs Rowdy Titans

Scenario: Into the Breach

Synopsis: Another team DOGC is familiar with as they had paired off at TempleCon earlier this year. The matchups were a bit shuffled this time, as they feated to get a different matchup in the Captains spot. In the 1st Lieutenants match Alex was pitted against a familiar foe from Massachusettes who he plays regularly when he’s at college during the school year. The matchup was Cygnar vs Cygnar, Alex dropping eCaine versus eStryker someone he was obviously familiar with. With both players being very familiar with the others armies, it was predicting to be a cagey match where they both stayed out of threat range. The piece trade was started by eStryker who committed his a Stormclad to kill Eyriss. Alex responded by having his Knights counter charge and scrap the Stomrclad. Being that the Precursrs were keeping Stryker from being able to score, they had to be dealt with, so he committed everything he had to killing them, including committing Stryker forward to do it. Alex pondered a few different options then decided it was best to go for it now as he would likely spend the rest of the game running from Stryker otherwise, and used a reload from Rienholdt, popped Feat and poured 10 shots into Stryker. It took all ten shots, but when the clouds cleared, Stryker had gone down in a hail of gunfire, despite being on a fullfocus camp. DOGC up 1-0, and looking strong.

In the 2nd Lieutenant match, Shane was matched up against one of the two Skorne players.  Knowing his opponent had Xerxis in his stable Shane felt forced to drop Rask. His opponent indeed dropped Xerxis, meaning Shane felt good about the call he made.  Rask was able to pin the Xerxis force back pretty far and keep him out of the zone for a very long time. He continually sent things in to sacrifice to keep me from scoring the zone but those things weren’t attacking.  I was finally able to attrition him out and dominate the zone. Xerxis was sent at the flag as a last ditch effort but it wasn’t enough, Shane won on scenario securing the third round victory for DOGC.

Anthony’s game finished about the same time as Shane’s, so he was not aware of the status of that game at the time he was playing so it was full go. His match was against Sam, the only player who managed a win against DOGC last time their two teams matched up. This time he was playing Skorne, and looking at the fact that Anthony had now played eMorvahna twice he was comfortable knowing that he was very likely to play Kromac in the match. As such he dropped eHexeris whom he felt was his strongest play wanting to leverage Ghost Site on the Mammoth and destory the beasts at range. The plan seemed viable, as he fed his two units up the board early to draw out the Stalkers. Anthony efficiently applied his resources to wipe both units, and the Mammoth was able to successfully shoot one Stalker off the table. Anthony was then able to deliver the Lord of the Feast to the opposing lines who Skorne had underestimated. With Reach and engaging lots of the opposing lines, he was able to force eHexy to have his beasts deal with him, but it took more than they anticipated. As such it allowed Kromac’s force to score the zone, seizing early CP. Skorne had to respond by having Mammoth crash the zone to stop scoring and attempting to deal with the remaining heavies in the zone; but opting not to boost attack rolls proved to be a vital error. Kromac responded by going into beast form, and using his feat to take the Mammoth down to only about a third of it’s life. The healed Pureblood now finished it off, and the Stalker was allowed space to charge the remaining light beasts leaving only Hexy and a few support pieces. Sam responded with a qualified, long shot, assassination run, however it ultimately fell short allowing Kromac to dominate a second time, and win on scenario. DOGC had swept their opponents for the second time in three rounds.

Round 4: vs Team Temple

Scenario: Ammunition Run

Synopsis: This round was longest team huddle had all day. DOGC was in the undefeated match, and there was only one other undefeated left. The pair down match had Regular Team paired up and we knew that there was a real chance they would win that match and make this round the championship round. So in assessing the matchups the conversation was centered around whether to feat or not. None of us felt uncomfortable in their current matchup. Anthony was pitted against J-Wow and Khador, Alex against Derek and a likely eLiche game, and Shane was staring at Zach and Retribution whom he was very comfortable against. The one conclusion that came out of it, was that Shane didn’t want to face Cryx so if we got that match we might choose to feat out of it, but otherwise we weren’t going to change anything. Alex should have been fine w/ eCaine versus Liche and Anthony was very comfortable playing against Liche and Cryx in general as he had Kromac itching to take the table and satisfy his Divide and Conquer stipulation.

On the dice to decide who was going to Feat, DOGC lost the roll and advised they were not feating. Team Temple promptly feated in response moving Zach and Retribution up to the top spot, and prompltly sending Derek and eLiche to face Shane leaving Alex with J-Wow and Khador. Shane acknowledged that this meant Alex and Anthony would likely have to carry the day if they were going to win this round, as Minions have a hard time with Cryx in general and specifically have a hard time with eLiche. Away they went.

Shane’s game was unfortunately an ugly one and he opted to go with Rask, and sure enough Derek dropped eLiche. Shane was able to hold Derek back for a very long time and Death Clock began to come into play. On turn 3 Rask had a chance to dominate the zone but a tough Bane Thrall stopped that. After that it went downhill quickly.  It took Derek 8 turns to finally dominate the zone for the win, however the games that Anthony and Alex were in were coming to a conclusion, fingers crossed.

Alex dropped eStryker versus pIrusk, and the matchup was one he was comfortable in, fearing the Doom Reaver spam more. Irusk ran into position first turn, and Alex responded by keeping his opponent beyind max threat and having the B13th leave a Mage Storm in an inconvenient spot to make the IFP move around it. Irusk in turned feated to get into the zone and prepare of impact. Stryker advanced his force and took out the objective, then used his Feat to clear the zone, allowing Stryker to advance in and dominate early, scoring 3 quick CP. Irusk assessed the situation, eye balled the range as best he could and decided it was go time. He loaded up Beast with focus, dropped Superiority on him, and declared a charge on Stryker. To be sure of an accurate measurement, a judge was called and it was ruled that Beast was short, leaving him waiving in the breeze. On the followup turn, Beast was scrapped by Stryker, and the remainder of the force cleared what was left from the zone to dominate again and win on scenario 5-0.

At the same time Anthony’s game was coming to an end. In full disclosure, Zach admitted that it was the game versus Anthony that caused Team Temple the most angst. None were really familiar with eMorvahna at this point, and the list he is playing is not very similar to what is currently out there in the meta, so nobody was comfortable going into it. Derek didn’t want to walk into a game versus Kromac when the lay up was available versus Minions, leaving it to Khador or Ret. Boostable ranged attacks is still the best way to bring down eMorvahna so Zach stepped up and said he wanted the match. He had two lists, and one owas Ossyan the other was Rahn. He looked at the pairings and realized that Anthony had only played Kromac once, this being a Divide and Conquer (2) five round event, that meant that if Anthony did not drop Kromac he would be suicided in the 5th round (if there was one) into playing him. As such, he opted out of dropping Rahn afraid of Beastial and dropped Ossyan. Anthony made a pre-round decisoin to go for eMorvahna as he felt that was the best matchup, given that Ossyan could be really bad for Kromac and Rahn was playable. This is what Zach expected. What neither player expected was for the camera to be pointed at the final table. Tectonic Craft Studios prepped some sweet terrain for the game and by happenstance both players had fully painted armies. What a sweet recording opportunity.

With all but the championship to be determined, Zach and Anthony squared off. Zach had Shatterstorm up right away and made good use of it firing onto the 8 box Ravagers early. Fog of War from Morvahna proved to be somewhat problematic but not before 3 models were RFP early. Zach ran his Halbadiers forward to keep the line of engagement up the board and away from his ranged units. The Ravagers, thanks to corpse tokens, were able to clear most of the Halbs off the board, and this allowed Zach to respond by getting Shatters Storm on two pieces now, rotating from Storm Falls to the AFG. But Fog of War was even more problematic now that most of the Circle infantry was engaged. Zach then opted to use Discordia to try and take out the Woldguardian who had come forward to scrap the objective the turn prior. Doing some quick math in his head he realized that he probably wouldn’t get it done with three focus, he decided to try to slam him out of the zone, when that failed, the game was looking poor. The Guardian then scrapped the Character jack, and the game quickly went downhill from there. Circle scored more CPs, and pushed the line of engagement way forward with eMorvahna’s feat now that the Halbs were clear, she put a whole slew of Ravagers into the Ret gun line, meaning none would be shooting. the Feral advance to a wall about mid board on the R flank as the WoO pushed foward and the Skinwalkers had taken control of the L flank.Next turn was a formality as Ossyan made a desparate attempt to Feat and clear anything improtant but was unable. Circle scored the zone again on the Ret turn, and eMorvahana was able to walk in on the final turn to dominate the zone for the win and the NETT championship!

What a hugely successful day for DOGC! They had no easy matches and two of their opponents finished 2nd and 3rd meaning that they had battled the best the tournament had to offer and still emerged victorious! Honorable mention to DOGC Tres that was in the would be semi-final match against Team Temple and had they won it may well have been another DOGC vs DOGC final to determine a team tourney championship.

The NETT being arguably the most recognizable team championship this side of the WTC marks another huge tournament witn for DOGC! What a great event by Paul and Craig, they are long standing pillars of the community, and we all enjoyed some post title celebration and couldn’t be prouder to be the first to bring the trophy back to CT!