Especially considering how close butts were during the rounds
Overall I felt I had made a sort of break-through during this event, in terms of making plans for my lists and responding to what my opponents dropped into me. I find this kind of funny because a few days before the event I was telling my flatmate how I appraised my ability, where I tend to just throw shit at my opponent, and then work to dig myself out of whatever hole I found myself in.
My first game illustrates my feeling that I had progressed in some way:
My next game was into Chris Ford, who dropped Ossyan into my Thexus list. No photos to document the exchange, but I wrangled a scenario win in Outlast, feating to push models out of zones, tying up his troops with ambushing drudges, and slamming jacks around etc. He tried for an assassination attempt, getting dangerously close to ending Thexus with arced spell nukes into Thexus, but otherwise the amount of control and dude-swarm I had him stitched up.
The third round was against one of the local PGs Chris Otton, bringing his Coven list into Magnus. I got to say that Chris was an absolutely gracious opponent during our game, where it seemed there were instances where he forgot to make certain actions during activations, yet insisted we continue play. Bloody champ. For myself, this game provided me a lesson on threat ranges and scenario, where I wanted to remain out of range of an Infernal-Machine'd Kraken, but threaten the central flag on Incursion. With the Coven's feat denying LOS too, I wanted to make sure I could contest the flags, stay out of threat ranges, but also ensure that I had a walking threat into whatever he would send into to either claim the flag or contest it. Above, you can see Chris has pushed his Kraken into the Mangler I dangled out as bait, but forgot to feat afterwards allowing me to trade up significantly.
Day 2 and round 4 saw Richard drop Sorscha1. Below you can see where I got to, having cleared the zone on Recon, and have feated to prevent the juggernaut and iron fangs from coming into the zone. Richard spent some time figuring out how to draw a bead on Magnus, as assassination was his only out. After failing that, Richard only had 5 available Winterguard to rush the zone, which all got stomped on.
Round 5 was where all sense decided to leave me. I drew against Nikola, and as soon as he started describing what he needed to drop into me, and what I in turn had to drop into him. I had no clue. I pretty much followed what he said like some sort of Moccachino Pied Piper. I dropped Thexus, pushed my models forward without any real thought, and proceeded to get pulled apart by Nikola's Kallus list
I've included an obligatory photo to document my shame, and to remind myself of these instances where my thinking seizes up. Its happened a few times in the past, though this is the first time I really recognised it as it happened, so this is something to continue to reflect upon.
With my chances of taking first place being dashed (gratz to Peter Williamski taking first, and one-listing the whole event with Gorten), I was paired against Adam Oakson, one of Christchurch's brightest and finest. The match up was Vlad1 vs Magnus in Take and Hold. Here my brain decided to kick back in. Sort of. We started with mandatory running up the board on the first turn, and I measured to remain out of the 12" of Behemoth and one of his juggernauts, should be alright, we have the same threat ranges right? Not recognising Vlad has Boundless Charge saw me lose my Mangler and Nomad top of two. However, my feat meant I was able to hold things in place and take pieces back for no reprisal. I also recognised that a cheeky Black Oil from Gorman would also take Adam's battle engine out for a turn. The Croes also got to work chipping away at Adam's Riflecorps and the attrition battle started to swing my way. After I managed to get up on Control Points, and further piece trading, the board was pretty bare,and Vlad started to bully his way into the centre of the table with Blood of Kings up. In the end, Adam decided to push Vlad all the way in, and I was faced with either scoring my last two CPs to win, or live the dream charging Magnus into Vlad's back-arc.
Holy crap that was glorious. Even with Vlad being Def 18 I had 4 dice to hit, 4 to damage, the first attack being armour piercingffffffffuu
That was all a bit gratuitous, so massive thanks to Adam for humouring me in doing this.
And thus concluded my Lord of Ruin. A nice 5-1 run with Mercs. I learnt heaps in my games, and by running different lists and factions. Next, my faction ADHD leads me to Minions, so the next post or two will document my soirees with them. following that, there may need to be further divergences into Cryx again.
