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.

This past week (January 12th) at Dragon’s Den in Poughkeepsie, NY, Anthony won his 5th event as a member of Dark Omen (in the last ten months); it was his 7th final table, and as he gears up for TempleCon here is a Battle Report review from his side of the table…

I have participated in two prior events at Dragon’s Den and have fallen short, so as I ramp up for TempleCon, I really wanted to make a strong showing in my last event there before the big dance. Special thanks to Stan for running another really great event, and making some sweet objective and linear obstacle markers for the participants! Also thanks to Dragon’s Den for being a great host as always, looking forward to seeing our ugly mugs on your store page!

Regarding the event, as I have said in 2013 I’m intending to play Cryx in all major events; so as we move closer to TempleCon I want to have them on the table as much as possible. I will likely take a break from them after, for a bit, but for now, they are my faction for competitive play. The event was a 35 pt, 2 list required, 2013 SR Beta; here are the lists I ran:

eSkarre
Kraken
Deathjack
Nightwretch
Necrosurgeon
Necrotech
Pistol Wraith

Terminus
Seether
Satyxis Raiders x10 w UA
Mech Thralls x10
NecroSurgeon
Withershadow Combine
Darrage Wrathe
Madelyn Corbeau
Saxon Orrik

The list I have been working hard on is the eSkarre list. She is a new Warcaster to me, and I have had a hard time with her survivability, and taking advantage of the intricacy of her playstyle. Much more unforgiving than other Cryx Warcasters. I really wanted to play the Kraken with her, and I’m enjoying it. I’m finding that he is not often removed from the game and it’s really great to have him around late game. Additionally I have never before played Deathjack (I know, blasphemy as a Cryx player) and I’m liking the interaction of the two. I keep an arc node in there to not put pressure on DJ to get my early game debuffs up, and extend Skarre’s threat, w/o having to extend Skarre herself. The Necrotech and Necrosurgeon are auto includes to me; nobody takes a Colossal w/o a way to repair it, and Skarre definitely bleeds herself all game long, the Necrosurgeon is paramount, IMHO. The last few points I have toyed with, but have begun to settled on the Pistol Wraith. He does crazy good work under Black Spot, and her Feat allows him to stay around when filled up on souls.

The Terminus list is nothing new to you if you’ve read my battle reports in the past. I’m a Terminus player, and especially when I’m playing something new, I need my second list to be something very reliable. Additionally, in my experience eSkarre is very susceptible to competent ranged lists, and has a low model count; Terminus is polar opposite in both regards. It makes for a really nice pairing. Now onto the games, as always I’ll do my best on the opposing lists…

Round 1: vs Jeff
Scenario: Support by Fire
Opposing List:
pKreoss
Reckoner
Redeemer
Heirphant
Vassal x2
Choir
Zealots full w/ UA
Vessel of Judgement

Recap: In the opening round, I was facing two Menoth lists, both that had lots of guns, so to me the choice was easy, noting my commentary on my lists, this was not a match-up I wanted for eSkarre, so Big T it is. Turns out I made the right choice, as Jeff chose to roll w/ Kreoss. I would not have been in a good place w/ her. Jeff is a competent player who I have seen in all the events I have attended at Dragon’s Den. He pushed his position quickly, and had the Zealots out front, on my R, and the Reckoner and Redeemer in the middle w/ the Vessel facing my L flank. On my end I decided to layer my approach, with the Raiders out front, and run them right at the Zealots, having the MechThralls batting directly cleanup, w/ Terminus centermassed amidst the Thralls, w/ all the support in the rear, I pressed forward as far as I could after casting Malediction.

On the next turn, pKreoss decided to use his feat and wipe the Raiders from the board, which was to be expected; he was able to get all of them in his feat. The Zealots used their damage buff and went to town on the Raiders, leaving only 2 or 3 in the unit; they did pass their command check. He also was able to clip a few MechThralls, but nothing significant. There were two mistakes, the first was not using the mini-feat from the Zealots, the second was leaving Kreoss out of the Kill Box giving my two early CPs (under the new SR beta it is no longer auto lose). I believe that Jeff thought my stuff was out of range, perhaps getting a bit too greedy. About half of Mechthralls were in the feat and could not charge. I figured with Darrage Wrathe and Death Ride, I was able to get the rear ones just close enough to get back in the game. So I took the dice, activated Wrathe moved everyone up, and then let Terminus take over the game. Now in range, Terminus put his Feat up, cast Ravager on himself, and charged the Zealots. Blowing thru about 5, that were clumped to have close range on the Raiders. Then the Necrosurgeon activated to bolster the ranks of the Mech Thralls and I was able to get a few more into charge range. I brought Saxon up to pathfinder them over the linear obstacle in the middle of their charge lanes, and unleashed them on a few remaing Zealots and the Objective. They took out the objective, and added a few more souls to Terminus tally, Dragon’s Call had him camping at ARM 29, bearing down hard on the opposing force; when the dust settled I had 3 CPs.

Kreoss was now officially in a really bad spot. He had to leave the kill box, and was going to be in range of Big T, no matter where he went. He opted to pour every bit of damage he could on him, and run Kreoss to the farthest possible point from Terminus, hoping to maximize free strikes in the charge path. His attempts to damage the Liche Lord were futile, as he was already in god mode, and was unable to block the landing area with the Vessel. I took the dice on my turn, and made sure to maximize CPs before I closed the game out. I activated the Seether, took out the last objective, and ran the Withershadow to control the flag, ran Saxon up to take control of the other flag, then activated Terminus to charge Kreoss. It only took one focus and two swings to end the game; the extra steps taken earned maximum CPs for me. A good start to the day.

Round 2: vs Alex
Scenario: Destruction
Opposing List:
eStryker
Ol’ Rowdy
Squire
Precursor Knights x 10 w/ UA
Sword Knights x10 w/ UA
Black 13th
Journeyman
Runewood
Rhupert
Madelyn Corbeau

Recap: Alex is a common opponent for me, and I’ve watched his development over the past 18 months as a Warmachine player. He has found his wheelhouse with this eStryker list, having just won the last tourney he played in at The Battle Standard, and his second tournament win in his last few events. He was representing an eHaley list as his second option, but I knew w/ little doubt, he was going to be playing Stryker. As such, I decided this was the round to play eSkarre, as his force was heavily melee oriented, and Admonition on eSkarre would make it difficult for Stryker to ever get to her and Vadar. This game ended up being one of the more epic contests I’ve played recently.

I won the roll, and opted for second as there was a slight advantage on the other side of the table with a well placed piece of cover closer to the action, so that was the spot for Skarre. Alex took the dice, and put Stryker and Rowdy in the center of his setup, the Precursors on his R (my L) with the B13th and Rhupert behind them, and on the other side of his deployment was the Sword Knights with Runewood and the Journeyman trailing. The SK took their elite cadre move then ran first turn, coming nearly to the middle of the board. Everything else ran and lagged a bit behind, not before Jr put Arcane Shield on Rowdy. I took the dice on my turn, gave one to Kraken who was L of center, gave one to Nightrwretch who was center massed. DJ was center behind the piece of cover that was just outside the center scoring zone just in front of my battlegroup. The Necrotech was behind the Kraken, and ScrapThrall was on on my deployment line L of the Kraken, Pistol Wraith was also on the L of the Kraken, and the Necrosurgeon was adjacent to Skarre, with the Stitches surrounding them both. I ran the Nightwretch at the Sword Knights, in order to have Skarre arc Black Spot onto them, and was successful; thanks to Seas of Fate I didn’t need to boost. Put Death Ward on the Kraken, and positioned her on a hill to the R of my deployment zone. I activated the Pistol Wraith who promptly took out four Sword Knights. Then the Kraken took his aim, started firing his Flayer cannon at the Knights, proceeding to take his Black Spot attacks with the Hellblaster and poured those onto Runewood. Was able to splash him with some damage. There were only a few Knights left. DJ put Admonition on himself and moved forward into the zone, out of threat range of everything on the board.

Next turn Alex took his opportunity to charge w/ the remaining Sword Knights at the Nightwretch, using Runewood he buffed them and they did enough damage to take out the all important arc node, but was otherwise unarmed. He positioned the Precursors as a roadblock for Death Jack to Stryker, ran Madelyn to a safe spot in the woods on the L corner of the table (as I looked at it) just off the zone, kept the Journeyman back, and put Rowdy within 6” of DJ, threatening the counter charge. Used the B13 to drop Magestorm to drop LOS to Rowdy and the Prescursors right in front of DJ. The only thing in the zone was Rowdy. I took the dice, and knew this was feat time, as I’m sure Alex did too. I took the damage to upkeep all three spells. Gave one to the Nightrwetch and one to Kraken. Started with the Necrosurgeon and was able to heal all three damage, I didn’t want to wait as I knew I was going to move Skarre out of their range and not be able to heal her, after feating. I then activated the Pistol Wraith who took out more SKs, and was full on souls again. The Kraken was able to move up, finish the Sword Knights and use Kill Shot to hit Journeyman with some damage. The Sword Knights now gone allowed the Nighwretch to take a boosted damage attack on the Monolith nearest him. Then the Scrap Thrall charged in did his POW 16 charge attack to the monolith. DJ activated next, and threw Rowdy out of the zone stuck behind the objective, and pinned the Precurors out of the zone. Skarre activated last, feated, and moved into the zone to get more of the Cygnar force in range. I opted to feat on DJ, Skarre, and the three B13. Blocking those gunshots, in retrospect, was a rather important move, as it prevented him from taking highly accurate shots at my support, before I was able to get them engaged.

Alex took the dice back, and was trying to prevent damage the following turn. He moved Rowdy back in the zone, and after he moved, I used Admonition on DJ and to get out of AOE KD attack I assumed was coming. The rest of the Precursors moved into bodyguard Stryker who was now full on the L side of the zone, right in the middle of the board, with Rhupert and Madelyn behind the full unit of Precursors. The Journeyman decided to come forward and take a fully boosted shot at the Pistol Wraith, and his poop RAT left him short on the dice. On my turn I knew this would be decisive, I gave one to the Nighwretch again, and three to DJ, upkept Death Ward by taking damage, and buckled up for my turn. I activated the Nighwretch, thanks to Seas of Fate was able to hit the Journeyman without boosting, which allowed me to boost damage, and take out the Journeyman. I then activated DJ, w/ Rowdy now back to ARM 20. I was able to kill him with two focus still on DJ. I used those two to put Admonition back on him. The Pistol Wraith then used boosted damage rolls to take out the Objective closest to the R side (for me). Which allowed the Kraken to get into the zone, and start killing Precursor Knights. Necrosurgeon attempted to heal Skarre, to little avail. The Necrotech stood next to Kraken, and blocked space and LOS to Skarre over about an 8” area.

Cygnar turn started by Stryker taking his Corbeau move toward the short side to avoid the wreck marker left by Rowdy; after the advance was over, I triggered Admonition on DJ to block his path to my side of the battlefield, as it was now cluttered with Precursors and DJ. He opted to use the rest of his turn to kill DJ. Which he did, and Stryker finished the job by taking a mini Vadar, one die of damage, then using his feat to gain the extra attack to finally put him in the dirt. On my turn, I took the dice back, gave three to Kraken, and he went to town on the Precursors, using a Kill shot to take out the Squire, and leaving only a few Precursors. Pistol Wraith came foward and mopped up two more, tucked behind a wall just off the zone. I moved Skarre to the far opposite corner of the very edge of the lower R corner (as I look at the board) directly diagonal from Stryker who would have to circumvent Kraken if he was going to try to get to Skarre who was as far as she could be from him.

As time started to wane down now, Stryker moved to start to shrink the gap between him and Skarre, and the Gune Mages tried to take out the Pistol Wraith, only two could shoot, and both shots were missed, thanks to DEF 18. Now getting the dice back, I gave three more focus to Kraken, one to Nightwretch, and stopped taking damage to upkeep Death Ward. as I wasn’t healing enough and needed to try and catch up, leaving her with two focus. The Nightwretch took a boosted damage shot on the only Monolith left, and Kraken took to swing on it at dice plus 1, and one shot it. Then started swinging on Precursors, and took a kill shot that took out Rhupert, and the remaining B13th. As time became crunched, I saw that my opponent only had Stryker and Corbeau left, neither of which were in the zone, and I had two CP for Objectives destroyed, and I was controlling the zone for a 3rd. I failed to realize that the scenario only called for four (4) CPs, not five (5), as I could have simply moved Skarre forward and dominated for the final two CPs.

Alex started his turn with only two activations left. Opted to Vadar to kill the Kraken, and did enough damage to take him down to half about ¾ done. At that point, with less than a minute left, I gave Kraken 3 focus Power Striked him out of the zone, boosted the attack and damage roll, I rolled pretty high, but barely paid attention, as I moved Skarre into the zone, to dominate and score what I thought was the final two CP to win, with less than 30 seconds to spare!!! Both Alex and I forgot the new SR rule that Warcasters and Warlocks don’t contest, so it didn’t matter that I pushed him out, either way was a tremendous game. Max CP earned again, and near tabled my opponent in points destroyed.

Round 3: vs Pat
Scenario: Supply and Demand
Opposing List:
Darius (Tier)
Stormwall
Centurion
Rangers x2
Stormsmith x2

Recap: Here we are again, Pat and I at the final table again in Poughkeepsie. Last time we played, Pat was able to pull out his first DOGC career tourney victory, needless to say I was seeking revenge! Pat had two lists eligible for this round, and opted to go w Darious. Knowing he had both lists available and after reviewing each, it was clear there were plenty of guns available to him in either list, which meant I was opting for my Terminus list.

With the center scenario in play, I opted to go first, and get as far forward as I could before Stormwall could get covering fire down. There was a wall on my side of the board just outside the control zone. I opted to put my Raiders off to my R flank and try to divide Stormwalls attention between them and the McThralls. On my opening turn I ran the Satyxis to mid board still on the R flank threatening the Rangers on that side of the board. Then I ran the McThralls into the nearest edge of the zone, and brought Terminus to my side of the linear obstacle after casting Malediction. Darius took advantage of his Tier benefits by dropping all three pods after trampling 10” forward. The two units of Rangers were flanking either side of his deployment line, and he moved them up. The Rangers nearest the Raiders were able to clip a couple of girls, and then braced for impact. Darius activated last and put Fortify on Stormwall

I took the dice back and knew I had to take advantage of Stormwall trampling and not dropping covering fire. As such I pounded home with some McThralls and a couple of Raiders, doing some Feedback damage to Darius, and doing nominal damage to the Colossal. The remaining Raiders engaged and took out all but two of the Rangers on my R flank, and Terminus took the opportunity to get into the zone, surrounded by MechThralls, and his support. With all the Tough rolls around me I wasn’t worried about Stormwall attempting to get to Big T. Just to be sure I moved the Seether into the zone to make it difficult for Stormwall to fit any place easily. Darius took the dice, and started the precision execution of removing my pieces. He used his Stormsmiths to take out a few Raiders, and MechThralls. Then he trampled the Centurion foward off the R edge of my zone, protecting his objective, w/ Polarity Shield up, also preventing the Raiders from circling to the rear of his lines w/o taking free strikes. Stormwall dropped covering fire to force me to move McThralls away from him, and prevent new ones from getting to him. Lastly he moved a few Rangers forward and was able to get close enough to Saxon to remove him from the board. With nothing in the zone, I scored a control point at the end of his turn.

As I took the dice, I contemplated camping the zone to Dominate for two more and trying to get to his objective to score another one. After thinking it over, I knew if I did that, he would simply move Stormwall into the zone, and even if I made a run at him, I would have a very hard time removing him thanks to Darius feat. Additionally the Rangers on the far side were dwindiling and if I didn’t feat this turn I wouldn’t have another opportunity to gather any souls. As such, I went that route, started with Terminus, put Ravager on him, and charged a small group of Rangers in the woods off the L of the zone. I took all four tasty souls, and was nicely behind the forest they were in out of LOS of Stormwall. Then my McThralls started to clip away some additional souls for Terminus, even the Withershadow got into the fun grabbing another couple of souls. All said and done Dragon’s Call had netted me 8 souls, and I was camping on ARM 30. The remaining Raiders on the Far Side charged into the far R of Stormwall, the Centurion, and the objective. I usd my mini-feat and did a bit of damage to everything, good for a couple more points of Feedback on Darius. Lastly, I walked Seether thru the Covering fire and did some more damage to Stormwall. I still controlled the zone for CP #2, feeling good about where I was I turned the dice over to Pat. He decided he had to get into the zone, as I suspected he would. Used the a Stormsmith to clear the three McThralls in front of Stormwall out, and made room for him to toe in the zone. He decided to not use his guns this turn and sweep attack on the models on his L side. Centurion also got in the mix, on full focus, he charged the Seether, and did a bunch of damage, but was unable to scrap him or take out any meaningful systems; but the zone was contested. Lastly, Darius activated and fully healed both his jacks with his feat (boo…)

On my turn, surveying the battlefield, Pat was getting low on clock and everything had gone accordingly to plan at this point. I now had 12 focus and was relatively out of the game, being on the far L flank. I had two choices, charge Stormwall and see what I do with Big T and the rest of my McThralls, since covering fire was not down this turn, or face tank Darius who is already damaged, and dare him to go for it with Stormwall and the Warcaster. I liked that option better. I started with the Seether, I threw Centurion out of the zone, to force him to spend two focus to get back to me. I charged the Stormwall with about 8 McThralls, combo striking for a bunch of damage on him, taking him down to a little less than half. I cleaned up the last Ranger with Withershadow, and then ran Terminus to behind Stormwall out of Reach and into melee range with Darius. I was able to get a few more Raiders engaged to the Centurion. Dice back to Pat, Darius was looking at the Abomination at ARM 30, and decided that he no longer felt compelled to save his Colossal, and moved the Fortify to Darius (more on that later), and camped the rest. Stormwall took some shots on some support pieces but was unable to hit needing 8’s, and the Centurion got some hot dice hitting with both his attacks on the Raiders clearing his path for next turn.

I received the dice back, I had four and half minutes left and Pat had flipped the clock back to me with only 28 seconds left on his own clock. I looked at Darius, he was ARM 23 at the time, now that I was down to my usual allotment of Focus (6), even with my debuff, I decided that it was not worth it to blow and assassination run on Darius if the dice didn’t cooperate; in my experience dice minus 5 is a tricky proposition on damage with a Warcaster that has a good amount of damage boxes. As such, I decided to take the Stormwall out this turn. I used my Corbeau move to move Terminus backwards into melee range of Stormwall to get him in Malediction debuff range, and now the unbuffed Colossal was a paltry ARM 17. The McThralls activated and were able to scrap the Stormwall, leaving a huge wreckmarker. As I myself was getting low on time, I didn’t do much else with the turn, and took CP #3 before turning the dice back over to Pat. Darius was out of options and all but conceding the match. He gave a focus to the Centurion, who ran into the zone next to the Seether, and Pat clicked the clock back over to me with 8 seconds left on his time.

Knowing it was over, I opted not to swing on Darius again and risk losing a game I had been in strong control of, moved Terminus back into the zone then clicked the clock back to Pat; with only too little time left, his clock went dry, and Terminus declared another tourney victory!

After reviewing the game, as we always do, we talked about meaningful activations when a clock is running down and ultimately realized that Pat had an illegal buff on Darius. Fortify is for a battlegroup Warjack, and could not have been put on Darius (obviously changing how I handle that decision to assassinate). Good news is that the game ended as it should have, and we didn’t lament any unfortunate oversight that changed the outcome of a final table at a SR, at that we shook on a great game and another fun tournament at Dragon’s Den…

In some reflections of the event, I realized a few things that are really important going into SR 2013 season. The Scenarios originally seemed like they would be ‘hard’ to win needing so many CPs, however, the interaction of Dominating and Warcasters inability to contest makes for an unexpected quick sequence of events that scores points. My feeling, walking away from this experience, is to take the opportunity score points in most cases, even above removing models in certain situations. I would suggest keeping the scenario on the forefront of your mind all the time, and consider how you can score each turn when scoring is available.

Additionally, make a concerted effort to know what your opponents stuff does, even if you don’t know, look at the card. Unless you’re 100% sure you know what something does, check again. It would have been an uncomfortable end if that misuse of Fortify had cost me the game; both for my opponent and me. Oversights happen, we all do it, try to mitigate it as best you can.

Also, Cycling upkeeps late game is an artform :). Remember to move your buffs around, especially as they expire. Things like Admonition mean different things early in the game than late.

Lastly, not in a game that I played, but in events I have played in recently, I have seen some player disputes (not hostile) where the people involved tried to work something out, and one person was left with an unsatisfactory feeling. I always urge you to simply get the TO involved, and be willing to live with the decision they make. I promise you’ll feel better about the results of discrepancy when it’s all said and done (even if it doesn’t go your way).

Looking forward to another sweet tourney season, hope to see you across a table soon!