GR Tournament on 20/8/2013

No...I wasn't using eHaley. I just like this picture...

So there was a small tournament held at Gamersaurus Rex on Sunday, and by small I mean the turnout was really small. Which was a pity since we've been trying to get new people into the game. Due to the small turnout, we ended up only having 3 rounds

Round 1 Siege vs pGrimm

Cygnar
Siege
-Defender
-Minuteman
-Squire

ATGM with UA
Black13
Stormguard
Journeyman warcaster

Trolls
pGrimm
-Mauler
-Impaler
-Axer

Bushwackers
Fennblades with UA
Fellcaller Hero

Ah, my standard troll opponent. Scenario is Fire Support, #12. I go 2nd. There's no Bomber, which is good for me. My Black13 is arranged in the center so I can magestorm with a wider threat arc. My stormguard are running up to the enemies objective on the right because they have the power to kill it while my ATGM are going near my objective so they can thunderstrike people away from it if need be. 

Turn 1
-His units all run up. Bushwhackers walk up, making sure to spread themselves out to prevent Siege from killing lots of them. Fennblades run up, spreading out and  make sure to stay out of the threat range of my ATGM. He's that used to them.  Grim's battlegroup moves up as a while and Grim follows up behind them.
+2 focus to defender and 1 to minuteman. Black13 walks up and magestorms the bushwhackers. I luck out on deviation and it rolls towards them, killing 2 of them. Siege walks up and lays down the hurt on some bushwhackers. Defender shoots at the Mauler. Minuteman walks up to near the opponents objective. Stormguard run up to the enemies objective. I ignore the Fennblades because I don't want to trigger vengeance. They're mostly about 14.5-15" away from me. 

Turn 2
-Fellcaller hero gives his fennlades +2 to mat and damage. His fennblades mini-feat and charge my ATGM. However, only 1 of them is actually in range due to me not bothering to shoot them the earlier turn. Which means they also had no vengeance. They miss. The bushwhackers walk up and take a mass CRA on my minuteman. They hit and deal a fair bit of damage to me. Mauler walks up behind the magestorm. Impaler casts farstrike on pGrim and walks up around the magestorm, which also blocks LOS for it to the minuteman. Grimm walks around the magestorm and shoots the minuteman. Boosts to hit and damage. Luckily my cortex and 1 arm is still up. As is movement. Axer runs to the Mauler.
+Draw focus from the Squire. 2 focus to Defender, 3 focus to Minuteman. Siege moves up and feats. Then lays down a groundpounder on the fennblades engaging the ATGM. I kill all 3 of them, which leaves me free to do a lot of other stuff. Minuteman walks into the fennblades and flakfields, killing several of them and then shooting the one who made its tough roll with its crippled arm, needing 2s to hit on a d6 and then killing it. The black13 move up and shoot the fennblades as well as magestorming the bushwhackers who were bunched up due to the previous CRA. Stormguard charge the enemy objective as well as some bushwhackers, while making sure 1 of them is b2b with the flag and they're all within 4". ATGM move up to within 4" of the flag and b2b and start shooting at the fennblades. End of turn, I score 3 points. 2 for controlling flags and 1 for destroying the objective.

Turn 3
-His fellcaller hero moves up to spray my gunmages but fails to hit them. The fennblade moves up to engage my minuteman for some reason. I think he forgot he can jump in the rush of the timed turn. The bushwhackers fire at my stormguard with CRAs. The Mauler moves towards my ATGM but it's too far. The axer charges my stormguard and kill a few with thresher. Then Grim shoots one of the ATGM base to base with the flag. However, by this time, it's too late. He's too far away and still not contesting my ATGM held flag. He ends his turn and I gain another point. 
+I end my turn and gain the last point. 

Thoughts on game
I'm pretty sure my opponent panicked during Turn 3. He could easily have gone in and prevented me from scoring on his Turn 3, but those units probably would have died on my turn. Plus if his brick opened up too much, Siege was always willing to shoot at Grim. 

Round 2 Siege vs eFeora

Fire...it buuuuurns

Cygnar
Siege
-Defender
-Minuteman
-Squire

ATGM with UA
Black13
Stormguard
Journeyman warcaster

Menoth
eFeora
-Vanquisher
-Templar
-Redeemer

Min. Choir
Exemplar Errants with UA
Vassal
Daughters of flame

There's a jack you don't see very often. The Templar. Also, his bond is on the Redeemer. We play Incursion; #5 and he goes 2nd. Which I wanted to do. Damn. There's a nice forest on the left edge, where the flag is and I deploy my stormguards there. Mostly because it prevents his vanquisher from shooting me and also so that they can go towards either the center or left flag if the other vanishes. The Black13 are all the way on the left flank because I'm really planning to use them like tempest blazers and flank all the way around with them if I can. He deploys his errants on the same side to meet my stormguard. 

Turn 1
-1 focus to Defender and 1 to Minuteman. Arcane shield goes onto Siege again. Siege casts foxhole and charges up to the opponents jacks, right into the foxhole. Defender runs and blocks LOS to siege. Minuteman hides behind the forest. ATGM move up on the right flank but make sure to stay out of the daughters range. Stormguard run up behind the forest. Black13 flank the forest
+3 focus to redeemer. Errants run towards the forest. The choir sings battle and the Redeemer moves up and shoots several times towards Siege and the ATGM but misses them all with its deviations. It does set Siege on fire though, and he'll remain that way throughout the entire game. Vassal allows the Redeemer to shoot one more time but it still misses. Vanquisher moves to the left and Templar follows behind him. Feora casts Escort and follows the Templar by moving to the left.  The middle flag disappears. Daughters run up towards the ATGM and end up on a hill. 

Turn 2
-Draw 1 focus from Squire. 2 focus to Defender. 2 focus to minuteman. I feat with Siege and lay down a ground pounder on some Errants. They die. Defender walks up and loads a fully boosted shoot into the redeemer, who was out of my feat area but it still drops his cortex. Which was lucky cause that means no more ROF3 bought attacks. The black 13 walk up and lay down magestorms and shoot where possible but most of the time, the forest blocks LOS. Stormguard charge whatever they can but again, forest blocks LOS to most of them. However, it does not block eLeaps. So hey, situationally useful ability comes into play. Lots of errants die that day. Minuteman walks into the rest of the errants, kills 3 with flakfield and then shoots down 2 more with guns. ATGM stand still where I'm sure they have 14" range to the daughters and move up where I'm not sure. As a result, I kill 5/6 daughters and they fail their CMD check. 
+3 focus to the templar. The templar charges my minuteman but fails to hit it at all. This was some really bad dice rolls. The Vanquisher walks up to shoot at Watts, the only black13 member it can see. It fails to hit it and the deviations ends up rolling backwards. Onto his own errant... The errants charge my stormguard and Black13, miss the black 13 , hit the stormguard and tries to shoot the black13. Fails to hit the black13 again. Redeemer shoots the stormguard that's within its LOS. Vassal gets the templar to hit the Minuteman again but it misses on 2d6. The choir sings no shooting. Unless it's magical of course...I think my opponent forgot I have explosivo, and this also explains why he didn't sing battle before that when he was beating my minuteman.

Turn 3
-1 focus from squire. 2 focus to the defender and 2 focus to minuteman. Minuteman jumps away fro the templar. Flakfields next to an errant and kills it. Walks up to the flag and controls it. Black13 spread out and Watts shoots at the Vanquisher. Stormguard run and spread out. The forest is really blocking LOS to almost all the enemy models for me, which is also a good thing because I don't want the vanquisher to be able to spot me. ATGM walk up and shoot the last daughter off the board. Which was a mistake. The daughter hadn't passed her panic test and I could easily just have run up and scored another point. Ugh. Siege runs towards the ATGM, intending on dominating that flag later on. Defender walks up since Feora is out in the open and takes a shoot at her and deals some damage at dice -6. I score 1 point. 
+She gives 3 focus to the Templar and 2 to the Vanquisher and upkeeps Escort. The choir sings battle (finally) and the Templar charges my Defender. 3 focus later, my defender is still alive by a bit. But then the vassal of menoth walks up and commands the Templar to hit the Defender one last time. That's it, the Defender blows up. The Vanquisher does the unexpected and walks up and beats my minuteman. Guess he was sick of the jumping around. with 2 focus on it, he kills it easily. Then Feora decides to charge my stormguard at the other side of the forest, away from the others. She kills it but I was expecting her to firestep away and kill the other 2 stormguard nearby but she's out of focus. 

Turn 4
-Right, no jacks left. Lots of jacks on his side. I'm going to try and win by scenario. I draw the last focus from the squire. And then I decide to charge his eFeora with my 2 stormguard nearby. Due to both parties having reach, I manage to hit 3" even though one of them is already engaged with the other. I roll for the first stormguard, hit and then my dice roll 5,6,6 for damage. Uh...good game Feora?

Thoughts on game
Really should have gone for Scenario on this one. Made a mistake by not running my ATGM towards the zone. Also, really wasn't expecting to kill Feora with that one charge, just soften her up a little bit so she'd be wary of walking within 19" of Siege. 

Round 3 Siege vs Gaspy3

This is where it all goes to hell in a basket

Cygnar
Siege
-Defender
-Minuteman
-Squire

ATGM with UA
Black13
Stormguard
Journeyman warcaster

Cryx

Gaspy3

-Vociferon

-Cankerworm

Satyxis Raiders with UA

Min. Satyxis Blood Hags with UA

Satyxis Raider captain

Banethralls with UA

Necrotech and Scrap thralls

Saxon Orrik

Right, huge infantry spam. Hopefully I can clear it. We roll for deployment and I end up going 1st. Scenario is Close Quarters; #3.

Turn 1

-1 focus on Defender and 1 on minuteman. Arcane shield goes onto Siege. The minuteman runs to the right side. Stormguard run up to screen the Black13. ATGM run up to defend my flag if need be.

+1 focus to cankerworm. The captain gives the raiders desperate pace. Gaspy3 casts ashen veil on the raiders. His units run forward and engage my stormguard. Cankerworm runsforward and the affinity with Gaspy3 allows it to move even further forward at the end of it. 

Turn 2

-1 focus on defender and 1 on minuteman. Siege lays down some ground pounders and boosts most of them. I kill some Satyxis Raiders. Defender kills some banethralls. Minuteman jumps in and kills some Banethralls with his flakfield and shoots some more to death but a lot of tough rolls are made. Stormguard try to hit the Raiders but their defence is high enough that I miss most of the time. 

+His bloodhags and Raiders charge my stormguard. With the sheer volume of attacks, even the valiant stormknights have to fall. I lose quite a few units to the charge but I manage to pass my CMD check. Gaspy3 goes on to secure his flag and camp on his focus. That's 1 point to him. Banethralls scrap the minuteman. His cankerworm walks forward and engages Ryan, preventing me from magestorming them. 

Turn 3

-I need to get to his flag and contest but there's a huge swath of infantry in my way. The ATGM try to clear whatever they can clear but it's not enough. The Black13 stand still and shoot to try and clear the Satyxis they can reach. I still can't clear the sheer amount of infantry blocking my way though, leaving him to control the flag on my turn. 

+Banes charge the ATGM blocking charge lanes to Siege. However, they don't manage to hit them due to their higher def. Higher than the stormguards anyway. The Satyxis continue to engage my stormguard and kill them. He decides to send in a scrap thrall to try and kill the black 13. And when that fails to work, he has saxxon Orrik shoot it in the back, which works, causing it to explode and take the black 13 with it. He gains another point.

Turn 4

-So my defender is engaged. Siege is engaged. I literally have no way to shoot him unless I kill off everyone engaged with me but I have too few units left to do that. So I end up killing whatever I can for the army points and end my turn, leaving him to get the last CP he needs to win. 

Thoughts on game

That was pretty brutal and really should have played my units better. The black 13 were too upfront and should have just hidden back in my deployment zone on the 1st-2nd turn. Because without their magestorm clearing power, my list has issues with infantry swarms. Instead of going for the bane thralls first, I really should have just taken down the Satyxis Raiders with Siege and the ATGM because way too many of the thralls made their tough rolls to make them a justified use of my action. 

As it is, he just jammed me hard and prevented me from moving upwards to contest his flag, which was a pretty effective tactic.