We're #2! Retribution Success at Blood, Sweat, and Tiers

Blood, Sweat, and Tiers happened yesterday in Flint. Having never played them up there, I decided to pack my Retribution. The lists were required to meet Tier 1 minimum. I ended up taking Tier 2 Rahn and Tier 4 Dawn's Talon Vyros (from No Quarter 35). The metagame was pretty varied this time around. (1 Cygnar [Kraye], 1 Khador [eIrusk], 2 Cryx [Mortenebra, Mortenebra/Terminus], 2 Retribution [Kaelyssa/Vyros Book, Vyros NQ/Rahn], 2 Trollblood [pDoomshaper, Calandra], 1 Circle [Kromac], 2 Legion [eThagrosh, Vayl/Rhyas NQ].) I happened to draw the bye first round; I seem to have a thing for doing that lately. (Remember Hardcore?)

Second round I'm up against epic Irusk. I chose to use Vyros (though in hindsight Rahn would've been nice considering Force Field versus Bombards). We were playing Gaining Ground. Rifle Corps try to bog up the middle of the board with Suppressing Fire, but the army isn't really moving forward. I get my first point after the Phoenix fries a bunch of Winter Guard and my other 'jacks claim the first zone. His Kodiak comes in to try to take care of them, but can't quite squeeze enough damage through. It takes me 2 rounds to counterattack (since Houseguard have trouble breaking armor and my Manticore needed its cortex repaired), but I managed to take care of it. The gun line still wasn't moving to take scenario, though.

The Destroyer, powered by Fire For Effect, was not helping. It did more than enough to that Manticore, and now the Phoenix was getting bombarded. In my last ditch effort I sent it at Behemoth, managing to take out 4 columns and more importantly keeping it away from Vyros. He did drop one boosted bombard on Vyros, but rolled horrible (1-1-2) on boosted damage. I trash the Kodiak finally and manage to keep everything else out of the middle zone, ultimately winning on scenario after attempting some VP-sniping.

It wasn't until after round 3, pairing Rahn and Rhyas, that I realized we were the only 2-0's. This game didn't go so well for me, though. I got way too aggressive with the Phoenix, opting to Combust rather than launch the Halo Cannon after arcing a Chain Blast to take care of some of Rhyas' troops. (I easily could've had Houseguard take care of them while keeping the Phoenix safe.) Discordia didn't fare too well on the other side. I got a War Chief and a good chunk of Typhon with the spray, but I didn't have enough in the way, and it became Carnivean bait from Rhyas' feat.

I counterfeat to attempt to clear out the rest, but my dice were giving up at this point. I roll boxcars on a Repair check to bring my Chimera's arc node back, and I couldn't hit the Harrier on a boosted roll until it was too late. I manage to get Force Hammer off to send the Carnivean back into a wall, but that was the high point of the turn. The Battle Mages weren't rolling too hot either. I ended up losing everything save my free Arcanist, but my other tiebreakers were enough to maintain second.

It feels cheap getting second on technically one win, but I'll take it. My Vyros list worked really well (its own access to Covering Fire helped a lot against those Winter Guard), and while Rahn didn't perform exceptionally well, a lot of it involved bad tactics on my part. So really I can't complain. It is time to take the Retribution off the battlefield for a little while, though; I need to get painting them!

War at the Store

The Detroit area is hosting the first ever (to our knowledge) 150-point tournament this Saturday. My Khadorans are coming to play for this one. I was thinking about scenarios on this one; obviously if I can get to the zones first, I can have a fairly good chance of winning. But how can I guarantee this? I started thinking about warcaster combinations, and one stuck out. I would have to borrow models to do it, but it could be devastating.

Remember how, a little while ago, I blogged about my first game using Bart? Under the original plan, he was to be step 2. My original combination was to use Old Witch's feat to test the waters, then have Bart come in and knock anything down that approaches. I'd then finish up with prime Sorscha, kicking my opponent while he's down. Because we all know how fun being simultaneously knocked down and stationary is...

I've since modified my combination as I was worried about hitting power and model count (as both Sorscha and Old Witch are primarily infantry casters, and I wanted to limit the number of models I needed to borrow), so I replaced the Old Witch with the Butcher. I still get some of the same support (Iron Flesh), but I get a feat that directly benefits my army (sans Bart and crew), and a caster that can run a few warjacks efficiently. And unlike Karchev, who I was also considering, Butcher offers more support for his army, not just his battlegroup, as he also has access to Fury. I have him running 5 'jacks, which is a bit steep, but in a bigger game I don't have to send them all in at once.

I round out the army with some Doom Reavers to tangle up with the front lines, Kayazy to hold a flank, Demo Corps to clog the middle after the Reavers, Dirty Meg running a Freebooter, and a fair number of support units and solos like Widowmakers, Manhunter and Yuri, a Koldun Lord, Fenris, and the like. I tried to maximize my support options while also maintaining a reasonable 'jack count and not duplicating anything (as there's a prize for not duplicating anything and winning a lot). With that feat combination possessed by Sorscha and Bart and the support to keep the flanks busy, I should be able to do pretty well tactically.

I've never played any games on this scale before. I've played a couple of 100-pointers, but that's nothing compared to this. The combinations are bound to be brutal. (I know that a Bethayne/eLylyth/Vayl combination is coming, for instance. Auto-boosted Hoarfrost, ew.) It's going to be chaotic. It's going to be a really long day. But it's going to be a blast. I can feel it already.

Mohsar Goes Hardcore

Ended up with a 2-2 finish in the four-round hardcore. I managed to get “lucky” and draw the first round bye. (The only problem is that I wanted to play.) So after waiting around for an hour and taking a few pictures, I finally got my first game in against eSkarre.

I'm going against Skarre, Deathjack, a Leviathan, a Nightwretch, a full unit of Satyxis Raiders (with Sea Witch and Captain), a Necrosurgeon and Stitch Thralls, and a Warwitch Siren. I get some Pillars of Salt up early to block the Raiders' and Deathjack's advance, but he goes around. Skarre uses her feat, leaving Mohsar and Megalith useless while making herself, Deathjack, and Leviathan invincible for a turn. I use the Warpwolf Stalker to try to get into position, but I can't hit the Nightwretch to save my life. I get one last shot when Skarre charges the Warpwolf and fails to kill it, but I left her alive by one. Meanwhile, Mohsar was playing with his new friend...

Next round I got paired against one of the two Legion players. This one had Saeryn, a Carnivean, a Raek, 4 Shredders, 2 Scathers, 2 Forsaken, a Shepherd, Gudrun, and Totem Hunter. The Wolf Riders are the MVP's here, as they take out the Totem Hunter, Gudrun, a good chunk of the Carni, and manage to get a blow on Saeryn. This was the only game I had a feat in, and it caused a couple Shredders (those who didn't die to a Crevasse) to frenzy and get in the way of the Carnivean, who was already toying with a Pillar of Salt. Things got a little fishy in the end, but time was called and I had enough of a presence in the Killbox (read: Megalith) to get myself a win.

In the last round I got paired against eStryker packing an Ironclad, Stormclad, 10 Stormguard, Gun Mage Captain, Journeyman with a really annoying Charger, Reinholdt, Rhupert Carvolo, and 3 Stormsmiths. I call the Charger annoying because it took out 2 of the Wolf Riders and a decent chunk of Mohsar before I tied it up with the Woldwatcher. We traded a lot of blows, though. A couple of Crevasses and the Stalker took out most of the Stormguard in one turn, and a missed charge prevented the Stalker from boxing the Ironclad, running back via Lightning Strike, and coming back to work on the Stormclad (who ultimately finished both my heavies). I got Stryker down to about 5 before time was called, only this time I'd lost the attrition battle for the 2-2 finish.

I thought the list worked well though. Mohsar did get caught in melee twice (though it survived the assault from the Raek), but all of my games were close. The list performed well, just fell a little bit short a couple times. It's looking like my next major tournament is going to be at the end of next month, and probably a 150-point monstrosity. I'm starting to get a few ideas, but more on that at a later date.

Preliminary: East Lansing Hardcore

Tomorrow I'm going to a Hardcore tournament up in East Lansing. I'll report on it on Sunday in full, I'm just going to do a quick once-over over my list and a loose plan for it. For starters, the 35-point list is:

• Mohsar the Desertwalker
• Megalith
• Warpwolf Stalker
• Woldwatcher
• Woldwyrd
• Shifting Stones
• Stone Keeper
• Tharn Wolf Riders (3)

There's not a lot to get in the way, so I want the Watcher to stay close to Mohsar to prevent a ranged assassination. Knowing there's a pretty good Retribution player up there, I'm going to want to protect some fury for transfers in case of Kaelyssa. The lack of models also means that placement of Pillars of Salt is crucial, but I wanted to keep model count down because it's Hardcore and time is an issue. The two heavies are my primary damage output, and the Wolf Riders provide a good flank that can come in for an assassination (especially if I can get Curse of Shadows on their prey target). The Wyrd can pick off targets depending on upkeeps (and in a practice game I played did a good chunk of damage to Calandra with Bullet Dodger up), and the Stones can give me better positioning, or they can heal when necessary.

My main problems during the little testing I did revolved around dice (as in another game I was having trouble hitting an unbuffed Scythean of all things), so I'm pretty confident the list can do something. I'll be posting updates throughout the day on Twitter (@arkanikawmh), so stay tuned to that, as well as the full report here. (Hopefully with pictures!)