This will be the wrap-up for the remainder of texasGamesCon this past weekend. It's going to be a bunch of battle reports, so it will be a long post with as much detail as i remember from the weekend. My previous post was a wrap-up of the Iron Guantlet on Friday. On Saturday I played in the "Masters" event (open masters format, 50 points 3 lists). then on Sunday i played in the doubles tournament. The team event was fun but for battle reports I'm not going to spend much time on that.
For the masters event i took my current favorite 3-list setup of Zaal, Makeda3 and Mordikaar. I like how the three of them work together, and they are my favorite 3 casters just for the fun factor. they happen to also be pretty strong.
here are my lists:
Zaal
- Kovass
- Archidon
- Krea
- Raider
3 Ancestral Guardians
Hakaar
Soulward
Willbreaker
Totem Hunter
max Immortals
max Nihilators
min paingivers
swamp gobbers
Basically the same as my IG list, but with totem hunter instead of saxon/feralgeist. this is my normal list with Zaal and hasn't changed much in the last year or so. it's very strong, and Zaal is my strongest caster. I think he's the best in faction, but at least some of that is personal preference and playstyle I'm sure. this is my hordes drop and good enough that I'll drop it vs anything I'm intimidated by.
Makeda3 and the Court
- Drake
- Krea
- Brute
- Savage
- Shaman
- Molik Karn
- Gladiator
Agonizer
Orin Midwinter
Willbreaker
max Paingivers
swamp gobbers
the Makeda list I have been running since shortly after Clash for the Cure last September. I love the light beast package with Makeda. I have tried a few types of list with her, I decided I didn't like taking a unit or a bronzeback with her. this list looks funny at first but it's amazing. this is my drop vs shooting and collosals.
Mordikaar
- Drake
- Krea
- Despoiler
Willbreaker
2 Void Spirits
max incindiarii
max nihilators
max swordsmen + UA
min paingivers
tyrant commander + standard
swamp gobbers
this is the cryx drop, and also good for any game where i want to go for attrition. it lacks in the armor cracking department, so i can't bring it vs collosals or hordes with a bunch of heavies. it's a fun list to play and Despoiler is amazing with him. void spirit assassinations are really sweet when they happen.
When we set up for the first round, the TO announced that there would be 6 rounds in this event. we were going to be in for a loooong day, especially since we didn't get started until 10:30 or so.
for my first round I got paired up with one of our local Ret players (we have a bunch of local Ret players, it's kind of silly how popular they are here). He was running eVyros, Issyria and i think Ossyan. I assumed he would drop eVyros, who seems to be the auto drop vs Skorne right now. I had been a little worried about this matchup and had been talking it through with the ret player I play against most often in our shop. we had decided through one practice game and a bunch of theory-Machine that Zaal was my best bet vs Vyros. so this match was my Zaal list vs a pretty standard griffon spam. he had 6 or 7 griffons, 1 aspis, max invictors + ua, eEiryss, 2 assassins, 2 arcanists.
the scenario was balance of power, the one where dominating the flags removes a point from your opponent. he won the roll-off and chose sides. on a scenario that is so hard to get points on, he proabbly would have been better off going first. deployment was pretty standard, he had invictors in the middle, griffons split to both flanks, and vyros and the aspis near the friendly flag. assassins were split and Eiryss was on the side with Vyros. i had immortals on the offensive flag side, nihilators on the other flank and the AGs and such piled in the middle.
turn 1 everything runs as far up as possible. Totem hunter is preying Eiryss and gets to where he can threaten her if she moves up to shoot IR off of my immortals. IR goes on the immortals, awakened spirit to the Raider and the AGs get a soul each. krea animus goes up to protect hakaar, one ag, Zaal and willbreaker.
He runs everything up and puts up Synergy. he lines things up so he can threat anywhere in the zone, but doesn't have anything in the zone at all. Eiryss books it away from totem hunter, and then an assassin kills totem hunter.
my turn starts and i think i might be able to get a few charges. zaal upkeeps both and i start by putting puppet master on the raider, who aimes uses his animus for free and shoots the assassin off the table. the immortals and nihilators both run/charge. between both untis i think i get 3 charges on jacks, plinking off a few boxes of force fields. i run the rest, jamming up the Griffons pretty well and engaging more than half the invictors. everything else moves into threatening positions getting all of the AGs in the zone in the back. the archidon moves central to pick off whatever comes closest.
his turn was plagued by bad dice. at least in the beggining. his first griffon hits and fails to kill an immortal with his shield, misses with the halberd. the second one with a +1 synergy misses twice. the next few kill several immortals and nihilators, but none of them are really able to move up at all. he frees up some invictors and shoots off some boxes on one of my AGs and kills a few nihilators. he feats this turn. he has nothing that got into the zone, so i score 1 CP.
once again I upkeep everything. vengeance kills a invictor before i thought it through and a griffon walks into the zone. the others plink off more force field boxes at dice - 5. the raider shoots at vyros and does some damage on boosted rolls. Zaal swaps awakened spirit to the archidon and last stand on the central AG. more free souls are handed out. the two units charge in, tying down all of the light jacks as tightly as possible and killing 5 or 6 invictors. nothing has very far it can go with feat moves. the archidon kills the griffon in the zone and sprints away for free. I score another point.
This time he's a little more successful in clearing out some of the jamming infantry and gets some invictors and griffons into the zone. one of them takes a last-stand Defensive Strike. some more stuff dies, but it's mostly just my troops who's only job is to fuel the feat. at the end of his turn a kovass with 3 souls pops out of the AG.
I clear the zone, walk Zaal in, feat and last stand the Kovass. Hakaar kills the Aspis and the Kovass charges into Vyros, sitting in the wreck marker. feat + last stand + kovass = dead caster. I also score 2 more CPs.
That went about as good as it possibly could have. he got jammed out of the scenario hard and had to try to get vyros to dominate the flag. failing to kill the arm-buffed immortals meant he never was able to dominate to remove my points, but put Vyros in trouble. he just wasn't able to chew through my disposable troops fast enough.
Round 2
the next round I get the pairings and I'm playing vs Jay Larson from Chain Attack. I'm expecting an incredibly rough game, but if nothing else I get to play against one of the hosts for the one podcast I listen to on a consistent basis. He's playing eHaley, pHaley and Siege I think. It's incursion, which makes my choice a no-brainer. I love Makeda3 on incursion, and she's the drop for Cygnar in general. he drops pHaley.
His list was Haley with Gallant, Jakes with Stormwall, Arlan, Squire, min Hammerdwarves, gunmages with ua, Black 13th, maybe a junior warcaster?
I got lucky and got first turn, so at least i could get up the field a bit before running into Temporal barrier. Makeda went almost center, slighty to my right. the beasts piled in around her, with Karn and Drake more to the right and gladiator, krea, savage, brute to the left. he had stormwall centered with haley beside it, gallant slightly to my right heading for a small wall, the hammer dwarves lined up on my right flag and the gunmages and B13 lined up on the left flag. he was definitely able to spread out more than me and would have something decent on either flag. I had to rely on fatewalker to help Makeda and Karn reposition where i needed them.
turn 1 I ran up and got defensive measures out where i needed them. vortex of destruction went up and the agonizer got 3. the drake and shaman went central, molik went slightly right, the gladiator went left with the rest of the lights and the willbreaker.
his turn stuff mostly ran. arcane shields went up on stormwall and the forgeguard. he set up threatening both flags nicely. we rolled for a flag to go away and to my relief the one closer to Karn stayed put. that meant his B13 would be quite far from the action and karn would have something to do even under temporal barrier. I started scooting right, with most of my stuff under the barrier this turn. the drake got close to the right flag, karn got in a forest right in front of the flag. the gladiator brute and krea turtled up in front of the center flag and makeda and one shield guard got up to the forest, less than 12" from the right flag. we measured both flags and found that we had each left a model JUST out of contesting range. my drake was a hair out on the right flag and his stormwall was just out on the center. the only thing contesting center was my Savage.
After some hard deliberation, Jay decided to drop arcane shield from the hammer dwarves. his gun mages moved up but were out of range on their shots, except maybe one snipe that failed to do anything in a layered defensive bubble of krea + gobbers. stormwall fired all guns at the savage, one big gun being intercepted by an exalted court who bit it hard even at arm 20 vs shooting. gallant got arcane shield and ran to control the center flag. the forgeguard all got within 4 of the right flag and controlled.
So my turn starts and I am down by 2 already. I knew i was going to lose control of the center flag, but i really wasn't expecting to lose a point on the right as well. so I'm down but in no way out yet. just about everything is under barrier at this point, so there will be a lot of walking. the gladiator gets up to contest the middle, along with a krea with a brute behind. the galdiator also gives rush tot he shaman. both gobbers get in contesting range and make a cloud.
makeda gives rush to the drake, and walks 6" towards the right flag through a forest, thanks to battle driven. she casts fatewalker on herself. willbreaker puts puppet master on the drake, who walks 8" to get a great line on the forgeguard. the spray catches all but one. i need 5s to hit and 5s to kill. i hit all but one, which i reroll with puppet master to hit all 5. i boost damage on the 2 furthest targets and they all drop. the shaman walks 8 and has range on the last forgeguard. i fully boost and take him off the table. Karn walks out of the forest and does fatewalker. end of turn makeda and karn walk to the flag and high five. score goes to 2-2 and i suddenly am in a much safer position.
Jay needs to score on the center flag and contest my flag this turn. if he can do that he can send stormwall to try to contest my zone next turn and hope makeda and karn can't kill a shielded stormwall in one turn. he starts by putting up barrier again and feating. the black 13th is out of feat range but pops off my gobbers with a mage storm. the gunmages go next and whiff a bunch of shots at my gladiator and krea. 4 were in range to thunderbolt, so 8 shots. the krea bubble and temporal barrier counter each other so he still needs 6s. after his shots he said he forgot about temporal barrier, but most of his misses were 4s and lower. it was a bad round of shooting. he hits twice, one gets intercepted by the brute who wasn't contesting anyways, one doesn't get the krea out of the contesting area. Gallant then tries to kill the gladiator but comes up short.
On the other side, stormwall walks towards the left flag and drops a contesting pod. he fires shots at Molik Karn and does about half of Karn's damage grid, missing one of the big guns. arlan runs towards my flag. score is still 2-2.
My turn starts and it looks like i have a shot at getting Karn to Haley. my gladiator is out of my control area, so either he has to go or makeda has to walk off of the flag to get rush on Karn. i start with the drake, killing the pod in front of karn. makeda scoots over and puts FateWalker on herself and rush on karn. willbreaker gives the big guy puppet master. Karn walks 8, kills Arlan and side-steps to the stormwall. he has to burn puppet master on a double 1 on one of those attacks. second side-step gets him to Haley. I think i need a 9 to hit? Karn being able to boost after a roll is great for this. I hit on 2 dice and drop her to 6 boxes. i buy a second attack and miss by 2, boost hit and get it. the damage roll gets her for the win.
Even if i hadn't won on the karn assassination I think i was in a good spot. I would be at 4 points to 2, but next turn there would be a stormwall contesting my zone. Makeda, Karn, Drake and Shaman may have been enough with vortex to get that done but I don't know. if Arlan hadn't moved up so far i wouldn't have a lane to haley, which would have at least given him another turn. actually, if i hadn't gone for the assassination I think karn the shaman and the drake could have all gone up to the stormwall and at least tied it down since nothing over there could kill them before stormwall activated, maybe preventing him from contesting the next turn with more than a pod.
It was a very fun game, and great to play against Jay. the matchup is one i've played more than a few times and I love Makeda3 vs cygnar, especially on incursion. she's made to kill that scenario.
Round 3
the next round I pulled Clifton Cline from Oklahoma. He was running trolls. I don't remember for sure what his third list was but he definitely had eMadrak and pGrissel. Zaal is my go to drop vs trolls, he's just a huge thing for them to deal with. he can make anything in his army break armor and has shooting that can remove troll heavies. i picked Zaal and he dropped Grissel with full warriors + UA, full warders, full champs with Skaldi, double Pyre troll, Mulg, stone with UA, runebearer, and possibly other models i have forgotten by now. Scenario was close quarters.
I got first turn, which is huge vs Grissel. my deployment was the same as game 1, with immortals on the offensive side, nihilators on my own flag and AGs in the middle and far flanks. totem hunter chose the warriors as prey. he had warders and kriel warriors going for his own flag, champs and mulg headed more towards mine. one pyre on each flank, stone in the back.
I ran up, he ran up. upkeeps went out. mulg got hallowed avenger, raider got awakened spirit, immortals got inviolable resolve.
turn 2 I jam up what i can and spread a bunch of dudes all over between the flags. the krea gets sniped and shoots mulg, paralyzing him. my furthest forward AG gets Last Stand.
on his turn 2, Grissel feats. a bunch of warders and champs kill a bunch of my dudes. they get over half the nihilators and 4 immortals. Skaldi ended up getting in the reach range of my AG and a last stand defensive strike makes him tough. I don't think he realized exactly what that was going to mean as he didn't have his stone do phantom chaser. if you haven't seen it before that will get you. after all the attacks, everything moves up to jam me. almost all of my infantry is engaged now. another AG gets a defensive strike but does little damage vs a warder and triggers battle driven.
turn 3 starts with vengeance. immortals do some points here and there to champions, and kill poor knocked down skaldi. hakaar bounces off of a warder. I throw in totem hunter who kills 2 models and ties down some backfield stuff with sprint. 2 AGs and Hakaar clear off my shooters. Zaal gives last stand to the kovass (who is on 3 souls), snipe to himself and the krea. he shoots Mulg, boosting damage with his last fury. the krea shoots mulg, hits. the raider snipes the soulward and shoots mulg. the soulward shoots mulg and boosts. Mulg is down to 5 or 6. the immortals flail against the champs and do nothing much. nihilators kill 5 or 6 kriel warriors and one warder. finally, my kovass goes and snuggles into a great thresher spot, catching 4 champs and 2 warders. the thresher is absolutely perfect and kills nothing but leaves them all at 1-3 boxes each. last stand is awesome. the ghost buys an attack, killing a champ and getting a soul. rinse and repeat. he toughs once or twice, but three souls plus one for every failed tough check means all 6 models die. kovass then dies to last stand.
now he's lost most of his meaty center. Mulg is paralyzed and on very few boxes, his champs are down to 2 and tied down, his warders are down to 2 and because of when battle driven triggered on a defensive strike now don't have a str buff. he pushes in what he can, killing more infantry and i think my Krea. this time he uses phantom chaser. he kills an AG and the kovass that comes out of it.
turn 4 is feat turn. vengeance does very little, plinking more boxes on champs. Zaal hex blasts hallowed avenger off of mulg, last stands the archidon and feats. the shooters finish off mulg. hakaar and the last AG and the immortals kill off anything between the archidon and Grissel. the archidon with enrage, feat, puppet master and last stand finishes the game.
and that's why i like Zaal vs trolls. Grissel with all that beef is normally scary, but zaal can cut it down pretty quick.
Round 4
the next round i run into Marc Taylor from Houston, who is running Legion. He has eThagrosh, Rhyas and Absolonia. The last time we played, we ended up with a Thagrosh/Makeda3 pairing and it went badly for me. I figured he was going to use thagrosh, especially since he had just beaten down another Skorne player with that list int he previous round. Makeda3 may still ahve been the best choice, but after some deliberation we dropped eThags vs Zaal.
His list was thagrosh, 2 Scytheans, 1 Seraph, 3 Raeks, 1 or 2 shredders, 2 forsaken, 2 shepherds. Scenario was fire support and i won first turn again.
I deployed fairly central, with the Archidon and totem hunter slightly right to go after the enemy objective. raider was left, the units were split with Nihilators on defense and Immortals on offense which is my normal deployment for them. He deployed very much overloaded on the offensive side, with only 2 Raeks a shredder and shepherd heading towards his friendly objective/flag pair. Totem Hunter Preys on the furthest right Raek.
Turn 1 I ran up, same as the other Zaal games. IR on the Immortals, Awakened Spirit on the Raider. everything runs and spreads out a bit. I am a little cramped on the defensive side by a large water obstacle to the left of the flag. he runs his stuff up, getting into position. Dragon's Blood goes on the central Scythean. nothing makes any attacks yet, a forsaken and shepherd clear some fury.
Turn 2 I get a little greedy and move my raider up, sniping off the loaded forsaken. My units charge up, mostly running but doing a couple of attacks on some forward beasts. I miss 2 charges on Raeks, do a couple points to a Scythean. everything else tries to get into position. I make 2 positioning errors on this turn. first because of the water obstacle on my far left I don't have an AG spread wise, instead I have 2 of them very close together between the flags. second, the archidon is still over to the right lined up on the objective. he should have been a lot more central to have more impact on Marc's movements next turn.
His turn 2 is a brutal one. Thagrosh moves up and feats, then kills one or two models that were tying down his beasts. Manifest Destiny goes up. the Raeks go next doing a ton of work under manifest destiny. they chew through most of my nihilators and 4 immortals. the shredder runs. the Dragons Blood Scythen now has a clear line to my AGs, one of which has last stand. it charges, my defensive strikes do almost nothing. the last stand one rolled a 1,2,2. it uses its animus and kills both AGs. the animus removes them from play, so no Kovass... the other Scythean charges my Raider, easily killing him off. Should have kept him back. then the feat kicks off. the Raeks don't do much, i think i lose all of the remaining nihilators who had toughed, no more immortals die. the Scythean who just killed my raider gets distance to my Soulward. it dies even with high defense and max souls vs manifest destiny. the shredder walks up to Hakaar and bites him. Hakaar is on full souls (arm 21) but he rolls really well and does 5 damage. the scythean then walks over and hits hakaar, doing exactly 5 damage to kill him. and remove HIM from play as well! still no kovass and three AG models down.
Turn 3 is looking grim. not thinking about having my AGs removed from play hurt, as the Kovass is a big part of Zaal's plan to get back in a game on attrition. losing Hakaar and my soulward was just huge. if they both survived, I am in a really good spot to take back this game. if even one of them is alive i have a decent chance. with both gone this is going to be an uphill climb all the way.
Vengeance kicks in and the immortals are able to clear the shredder and do some damage to the Raek. Totem Hunter kills the Raek and sprints back, switching prey to a second Raek. Zaal feats, moving towards the enemy flag gives Awakened Spirit to the Archidon, then puts last stand on the last remaining AG. at least I'll get one Kovass. the immortals put a little damage on the objective and the Scythean and kill off a shepherd. the krea paralyzes the second scythen that is standing with my obective between him and most of my stuff. the AG kills the Scythean that caused so much trouble to my other AGs. the Archidon kills the objective and sprints to the flag. I get 2 points. Had I managed my position better with the archidon the last turn, I could have possibly taken out the second Scythean instead of taking down the objective. kind of a lack-luster feat turn when the enemy still has 2 heavies.
his turn he kills the objective with Thagrosh, runs something in to contest my flag (a shepherd or forsaken, i forget what) and kills off another 1 or 2 immortals. this time the Raek doesn't do nearly as much. with the objective gone, the Scythean is able to get to my Krea and kill her. the turn ends with him dominating to put the score at 3-2 in his favor.
I have a lot that needs to get done in turn 4. first vengeance triggers and i kill the contesting model on my side. now i need to get zaal on the flag to dominate, contest his zone and prevent anything from getting to my flag to contest. he doesn't have a ton of models left at this point. the models in potential contesting range seem to by the Scythean that just ate my krea, both Raeks, and his last shepherd. the seraph looks out of run to contest range, his last forsaken is definitely out. Unfortunately my archidon doesn't have a line to the Scythean. really shouldn't have put it so far out. so the plan becomes have the archidon kill the closest Raek then sprints to tie down the scythean, totem hunter kills the far Raek, the Kovass runs to contest the zone, the immortals tie down the shepherd.
Well that's the plan anyways. I get Zaal to base the flag and put last stand on Totem Hunter and hex blast off Dragons Blood. actually the spell was before moving, but you get the idea. my willbreaker gives pupper master to the archidon. the paingives move to enrage and i have a dumb moment. instead of just having the kovass do it, i try to get some of them to the zone. I spread them so that one can attack the Scythean, one can contest and one can enrage. that puts one in Abomination range of the forsaken AND Thags. I pass one and fail the second. stupid of me. so no enrage for the Archidon. the Archidon pays to charge the Raek and hits on a boost, doing a ton of damage. buy and boost for another hit. I need a 4 on 2 dice to finish it off. I roll 1,1. that's ok, I have puppet master! re-roll into 1,2. so it doesn't die, and now things look very close to impossible. I get the kovass to contest, try to get some stuff in the way of the Scythean who is now not tied down by my heavy and get the immortals to tie down the shepherd and finish off the Raek. totem hunter kills the other Raek. I score and go to 4-3 in my favor now.
on his turn all he has to do is kill a kovass and contest my zone. Thags kills the ghost with no issue. the seraph slip-streams the shepherd out of reach of my immortal. the shepherd runs to my flag and that's the game.
It was a tough game, and I got down too far during his feat turn. I made a show of coming back, it actually came fairly close. I'm not sure it would have worked, but i had a chance if the Archidon finished the Raek. I'm really not sure i could have kept that Scythean in place though, the forsaken could have cleared off the infantry helping to tie down the lanes and do damage to the archidon. Then as long as the archidon doesn't crit on the free strike he gets through. it really came down to playing the Archidon too far out to impact the game and losing 3 AGs to RFP from the same model.
Round 5
Round 5 is against Karl from Dallas, who is also running Legion. He has Vayl1, Vayl2 and something else that i don't remember now. He chose Vayl1 and i decided I better actually play my Mordikaar list. his list had a Scythean, Seraph, Typhon, hex hunters, 1 deathstalker, incubi, succubus, shredder, and some combination of fury management solos. I got first turn on Outflank.
everything ran, swordsmen got hollow, incindiarii got banishing ward.
he ran up in response, killing one nihilator with a deathstalker shot and arching a spell through one of his own beasts to kill one of the void spirits.
I tried to kill most of the hex hunters this turn. my second void spirit ran over to the center of the board and Mordikaar moved up. I swapped Banishing Ward tot he second Void Spirit and feated. I then brought back the dead nihilator. the nihilators charged, killing 4 or 5 hex hunters and the deathstalker. swordsmen killed one more hex hunter and jammed up. Despoiler got into a central position and did his animus (which I'm pretty sure we forgot about in the next turn). incubi tokens were all spent now, so at least they were coming during my feat turn and i knew where they would be.
On his turn he announces that he thinks he can kill Mordikaar. I think he's joking, but he says he has a plan. first he kills my void spirit with a magical sword from a hex hunter, even with the feat defense, and after passing a cmd check. his Scythean moves up and kills a few nihilators. he realizes one of his hex hunters is in the way and tries to kill it, but fails. eventually he finds a way to get rid of the guy in the way and moves Vayl up, shooting her scythean and feating. she arcs a Hoarfrost into Mordikaar and hits but doesn't get the crit stationary. i take the 5 or 6 damage. she then does a rampager on my krea, then finds out how low a krea's MAT is. Typhon moves over and sprays at Mordikaar through 3 or 4 intervening models. this is when he finds out how poltergeist on multiple models works with a spray and only gets the one spray in that misses mordikaar. his feat kicks in and everything runs away except for hex hunters and incubi trying to jam.
On my turn I quickly swap Banishing Ward to Mordikaar to prevent any future nonsense. my nihilators clear their zone of incubi and hex hunters. the swordsmen get out of the way and throw some damage on Typhon. Despoiler charges in and kills Typhon with the help of a crit brutal in there somewhere, even though i forgot to calculate Dark Shroud. something kills an incubi next to despoiler making the poor ex-hex hunter into a void spirit. poor guy couldn't catch a break. the void spirit then charges the scythean and puts in some good damage. incindiarii light a bunch of stuff including Vayl and the succubus on fire. I score a point in each zone, and he's down to 2 heavies, vayl, a shredder and a succubus.
the Succubus dies in a fire. the scythean kills the void spirit and a few models. the seraph shoots at mordikaar but doesn't do much. Vayl kills a few models with spells.
despoiler charges Vayl, kills her in one hit. I was planning on using essence blast, but it didn't have to happen.
At this point, pretty much everyone was finished playing. most people who had a loss dropped after round 4. in a bit of gaming the system, the top 2 tables each had one person who had already qualified for WMW and one who had not. both who had already qualified conceded to their opponents (Marc and Flanzer), so the final was ready to start before round 5 had finished. had one of the guys qualified for WMW a second time, the place and alternate place would be determined by SoS. because they ducked out to get more of their guys in the running, there wasn't going to be much point in fighting for the SoS. those of us still playing went ahead and called it at 5 rounds.
Overall it was a really great event. I got to play against a bunch of really fun opponents and even got to try my hand in the ring against one of the best in the world. it was an awesome Con all around.
For the masters event i took my current favorite 3-list setup of Zaal, Makeda3 and Mordikaar. I like how the three of them work together, and they are my favorite 3 casters just for the fun factor. they happen to also be pretty strong.
here are my lists:
Zaal
- Kovass
- Archidon
- Krea
- Raider
3 Ancestral Guardians
Hakaar
Soulward
Willbreaker
Totem Hunter
max Immortals
max Nihilators
min paingivers
swamp gobbers
Basically the same as my IG list, but with totem hunter instead of saxon/feralgeist. this is my normal list with Zaal and hasn't changed much in the last year or so. it's very strong, and Zaal is my strongest caster. I think he's the best in faction, but at least some of that is personal preference and playstyle I'm sure. this is my hordes drop and good enough that I'll drop it vs anything I'm intimidated by.
Makeda3 and the Court
- Drake
- Krea
- Brute
- Savage
- Shaman
- Molik Karn
- Gladiator
Agonizer
Orin Midwinter
Willbreaker
max Paingivers
swamp gobbers
the Makeda list I have been running since shortly after Clash for the Cure last September. I love the light beast package with Makeda. I have tried a few types of list with her, I decided I didn't like taking a unit or a bronzeback with her. this list looks funny at first but it's amazing. this is my drop vs shooting and collosals.
Mordikaar
- Drake
- Krea
- Despoiler
Willbreaker
2 Void Spirits
max incindiarii
max nihilators
max swordsmen + UA
min paingivers
tyrant commander + standard
swamp gobbers
this is the cryx drop, and also good for any game where i want to go for attrition. it lacks in the armor cracking department, so i can't bring it vs collosals or hordes with a bunch of heavies. it's a fun list to play and Despoiler is amazing with him. void spirit assassinations are really sweet when they happen.
When we set up for the first round, the TO announced that there would be 6 rounds in this event. we were going to be in for a loooong day, especially since we didn't get started until 10:30 or so.
for my first round I got paired up with one of our local Ret players (we have a bunch of local Ret players, it's kind of silly how popular they are here). He was running eVyros, Issyria and i think Ossyan. I assumed he would drop eVyros, who seems to be the auto drop vs Skorne right now. I had been a little worried about this matchup and had been talking it through with the ret player I play against most often in our shop. we had decided through one practice game and a bunch of theory-Machine that Zaal was my best bet vs Vyros. so this match was my Zaal list vs a pretty standard griffon spam. he had 6 or 7 griffons, 1 aspis, max invictors + ua, eEiryss, 2 assassins, 2 arcanists.
the scenario was balance of power, the one where dominating the flags removes a point from your opponent. he won the roll-off and chose sides. on a scenario that is so hard to get points on, he proabbly would have been better off going first. deployment was pretty standard, he had invictors in the middle, griffons split to both flanks, and vyros and the aspis near the friendly flag. assassins were split and Eiryss was on the side with Vyros. i had immortals on the offensive flag side, nihilators on the other flank and the AGs and such piled in the middle.
turn 1 everything runs as far up as possible. Totem hunter is preying Eiryss and gets to where he can threaten her if she moves up to shoot IR off of my immortals. IR goes on the immortals, awakened spirit to the Raider and the AGs get a soul each. krea animus goes up to protect hakaar, one ag, Zaal and willbreaker.
He runs everything up and puts up Synergy. he lines things up so he can threat anywhere in the zone, but doesn't have anything in the zone at all. Eiryss books it away from totem hunter, and then an assassin kills totem hunter.
my turn starts and i think i might be able to get a few charges. zaal upkeeps both and i start by putting puppet master on the raider, who aimes uses his animus for free and shoots the assassin off the table. the immortals and nihilators both run/charge. between both untis i think i get 3 charges on jacks, plinking off a few boxes of force fields. i run the rest, jamming up the Griffons pretty well and engaging more than half the invictors. everything else moves into threatening positions getting all of the AGs in the zone in the back. the archidon moves central to pick off whatever comes closest.
his turn was plagued by bad dice. at least in the beggining. his first griffon hits and fails to kill an immortal with his shield, misses with the halberd. the second one with a +1 synergy misses twice. the next few kill several immortals and nihilators, but none of them are really able to move up at all. he frees up some invictors and shoots off some boxes on one of my AGs and kills a few nihilators. he feats this turn. he has nothing that got into the zone, so i score 1 CP.
once again I upkeep everything. vengeance kills a invictor before i thought it through and a griffon walks into the zone. the others plink off more force field boxes at dice - 5. the raider shoots at vyros and does some damage on boosted rolls. Zaal swaps awakened spirit to the archidon and last stand on the central AG. more free souls are handed out. the two units charge in, tying down all of the light jacks as tightly as possible and killing 5 or 6 invictors. nothing has very far it can go with feat moves. the archidon kills the griffon in the zone and sprints away for free. I score another point.
This time he's a little more successful in clearing out some of the jamming infantry and gets some invictors and griffons into the zone. one of them takes a last-stand Defensive Strike. some more stuff dies, but it's mostly just my troops who's only job is to fuel the feat. at the end of his turn a kovass with 3 souls pops out of the AG.
I clear the zone, walk Zaal in, feat and last stand the Kovass. Hakaar kills the Aspis and the Kovass charges into Vyros, sitting in the wreck marker. feat + last stand + kovass = dead caster. I also score 2 more CPs.
That went about as good as it possibly could have. he got jammed out of the scenario hard and had to try to get vyros to dominate the flag. failing to kill the arm-buffed immortals meant he never was able to dominate to remove my points, but put Vyros in trouble. he just wasn't able to chew through my disposable troops fast enough.
Round 2
the next round I get the pairings and I'm playing vs Jay Larson from Chain Attack. I'm expecting an incredibly rough game, but if nothing else I get to play against one of the hosts for the one podcast I listen to on a consistent basis. He's playing eHaley, pHaley and Siege I think. It's incursion, which makes my choice a no-brainer. I love Makeda3 on incursion, and she's the drop for Cygnar in general. he drops pHaley.
His list was Haley with Gallant, Jakes with Stormwall, Arlan, Squire, min Hammerdwarves, gunmages with ua, Black 13th, maybe a junior warcaster?
I got lucky and got first turn, so at least i could get up the field a bit before running into Temporal barrier. Makeda went almost center, slighty to my right. the beasts piled in around her, with Karn and Drake more to the right and gladiator, krea, savage, brute to the left. he had stormwall centered with haley beside it, gallant slightly to my right heading for a small wall, the hammer dwarves lined up on my right flag and the gunmages and B13 lined up on the left flag. he was definitely able to spread out more than me and would have something decent on either flag. I had to rely on fatewalker to help Makeda and Karn reposition where i needed them.
turn 1 I ran up and got defensive measures out where i needed them. vortex of destruction went up and the agonizer got 3. the drake and shaman went central, molik went slightly right, the gladiator went left with the rest of the lights and the willbreaker.
his turn stuff mostly ran. arcane shields went up on stormwall and the forgeguard. he set up threatening both flags nicely. we rolled for a flag to go away and to my relief the one closer to Karn stayed put. that meant his B13 would be quite far from the action and karn would have something to do even under temporal barrier. I started scooting right, with most of my stuff under the barrier this turn. the drake got close to the right flag, karn got in a forest right in front of the flag. the gladiator brute and krea turtled up in front of the center flag and makeda and one shield guard got up to the forest, less than 12" from the right flag. we measured both flags and found that we had each left a model JUST out of contesting range. my drake was a hair out on the right flag and his stormwall was just out on the center. the only thing contesting center was my Savage.
After some hard deliberation, Jay decided to drop arcane shield from the hammer dwarves. his gun mages moved up but were out of range on their shots, except maybe one snipe that failed to do anything in a layered defensive bubble of krea + gobbers. stormwall fired all guns at the savage, one big gun being intercepted by an exalted court who bit it hard even at arm 20 vs shooting. gallant got arcane shield and ran to control the center flag. the forgeguard all got within 4 of the right flag and controlled.
So my turn starts and I am down by 2 already. I knew i was going to lose control of the center flag, but i really wasn't expecting to lose a point on the right as well. so I'm down but in no way out yet. just about everything is under barrier at this point, so there will be a lot of walking. the gladiator gets up to contest the middle, along with a krea with a brute behind. the galdiator also gives rush tot he shaman. both gobbers get in contesting range and make a cloud.
makeda gives rush to the drake, and walks 6" towards the right flag through a forest, thanks to battle driven. she casts fatewalker on herself. willbreaker puts puppet master on the drake, who walks 8" to get a great line on the forgeguard. the spray catches all but one. i need 5s to hit and 5s to kill. i hit all but one, which i reroll with puppet master to hit all 5. i boost damage on the 2 furthest targets and they all drop. the shaman walks 8 and has range on the last forgeguard. i fully boost and take him off the table. Karn walks out of the forest and does fatewalker. end of turn makeda and karn walk to the flag and high five. score goes to 2-2 and i suddenly am in a much safer position.
Jay needs to score on the center flag and contest my flag this turn. if he can do that he can send stormwall to try to contest my zone next turn and hope makeda and karn can't kill a shielded stormwall in one turn. he starts by putting up barrier again and feating. the black 13th is out of feat range but pops off my gobbers with a mage storm. the gunmages go next and whiff a bunch of shots at my gladiator and krea. 4 were in range to thunderbolt, so 8 shots. the krea bubble and temporal barrier counter each other so he still needs 6s. after his shots he said he forgot about temporal barrier, but most of his misses were 4s and lower. it was a bad round of shooting. he hits twice, one gets intercepted by the brute who wasn't contesting anyways, one doesn't get the krea out of the contesting area. Gallant then tries to kill the gladiator but comes up short.
On the other side, stormwall walks towards the left flag and drops a contesting pod. he fires shots at Molik Karn and does about half of Karn's damage grid, missing one of the big guns. arlan runs towards my flag. score is still 2-2.
My turn starts and it looks like i have a shot at getting Karn to Haley. my gladiator is out of my control area, so either he has to go or makeda has to walk off of the flag to get rush on Karn. i start with the drake, killing the pod in front of karn. makeda scoots over and puts FateWalker on herself and rush on karn. willbreaker gives the big guy puppet master. Karn walks 8, kills Arlan and side-steps to the stormwall. he has to burn puppet master on a double 1 on one of those attacks. second side-step gets him to Haley. I think i need a 9 to hit? Karn being able to boost after a roll is great for this. I hit on 2 dice and drop her to 6 boxes. i buy a second attack and miss by 2, boost hit and get it. the damage roll gets her for the win.
Even if i hadn't won on the karn assassination I think i was in a good spot. I would be at 4 points to 2, but next turn there would be a stormwall contesting my zone. Makeda, Karn, Drake and Shaman may have been enough with vortex to get that done but I don't know. if Arlan hadn't moved up so far i wouldn't have a lane to haley, which would have at least given him another turn. actually, if i hadn't gone for the assassination I think karn the shaman and the drake could have all gone up to the stormwall and at least tied it down since nothing over there could kill them before stormwall activated, maybe preventing him from contesting the next turn with more than a pod.
It was a very fun game, and great to play against Jay. the matchup is one i've played more than a few times and I love Makeda3 vs cygnar, especially on incursion. she's made to kill that scenario.
Round 3
the next round I pulled Clifton Cline from Oklahoma. He was running trolls. I don't remember for sure what his third list was but he definitely had eMadrak and pGrissel. Zaal is my go to drop vs trolls, he's just a huge thing for them to deal with. he can make anything in his army break armor and has shooting that can remove troll heavies. i picked Zaal and he dropped Grissel with full warriors + UA, full warders, full champs with Skaldi, double Pyre troll, Mulg, stone with UA, runebearer, and possibly other models i have forgotten by now. Scenario was close quarters.
I got first turn, which is huge vs Grissel. my deployment was the same as game 1, with immortals on the offensive side, nihilators on my own flag and AGs in the middle and far flanks. totem hunter chose the warriors as prey. he had warders and kriel warriors going for his own flag, champs and mulg headed more towards mine. one pyre on each flank, stone in the back.
I ran up, he ran up. upkeeps went out. mulg got hallowed avenger, raider got awakened spirit, immortals got inviolable resolve.
turn 2 I jam up what i can and spread a bunch of dudes all over between the flags. the krea gets sniped and shoots mulg, paralyzing him. my furthest forward AG gets Last Stand.
on his turn 2, Grissel feats. a bunch of warders and champs kill a bunch of my dudes. they get over half the nihilators and 4 immortals. Skaldi ended up getting in the reach range of my AG and a last stand defensive strike makes him tough. I don't think he realized exactly what that was going to mean as he didn't have his stone do phantom chaser. if you haven't seen it before that will get you. after all the attacks, everything moves up to jam me. almost all of my infantry is engaged now. another AG gets a defensive strike but does little damage vs a warder and triggers battle driven.
turn 3 starts with vengeance. immortals do some points here and there to champions, and kill poor knocked down skaldi. hakaar bounces off of a warder. I throw in totem hunter who kills 2 models and ties down some backfield stuff with sprint. 2 AGs and Hakaar clear off my shooters. Zaal gives last stand to the kovass (who is on 3 souls), snipe to himself and the krea. he shoots Mulg, boosting damage with his last fury. the krea shoots mulg, hits. the raider snipes the soulward and shoots mulg. the soulward shoots mulg and boosts. Mulg is down to 5 or 6. the immortals flail against the champs and do nothing much. nihilators kill 5 or 6 kriel warriors and one warder. finally, my kovass goes and snuggles into a great thresher spot, catching 4 champs and 2 warders. the thresher is absolutely perfect and kills nothing but leaves them all at 1-3 boxes each. last stand is awesome. the ghost buys an attack, killing a champ and getting a soul. rinse and repeat. he toughs once or twice, but three souls plus one for every failed tough check means all 6 models die. kovass then dies to last stand.
now he's lost most of his meaty center. Mulg is paralyzed and on very few boxes, his champs are down to 2 and tied down, his warders are down to 2 and because of when battle driven triggered on a defensive strike now don't have a str buff. he pushes in what he can, killing more infantry and i think my Krea. this time he uses phantom chaser. he kills an AG and the kovass that comes out of it.
turn 4 is feat turn. vengeance does very little, plinking more boxes on champs. Zaal hex blasts hallowed avenger off of mulg, last stands the archidon and feats. the shooters finish off mulg. hakaar and the last AG and the immortals kill off anything between the archidon and Grissel. the archidon with enrage, feat, puppet master and last stand finishes the game.
and that's why i like Zaal vs trolls. Grissel with all that beef is normally scary, but zaal can cut it down pretty quick.
Round 4
the next round i run into Marc Taylor from Houston, who is running Legion. He has eThagrosh, Rhyas and Absolonia. The last time we played, we ended up with a Thagrosh/Makeda3 pairing and it went badly for me. I figured he was going to use thagrosh, especially since he had just beaten down another Skorne player with that list int he previous round. Makeda3 may still ahve been the best choice, but after some deliberation we dropped eThags vs Zaal.
His list was thagrosh, 2 Scytheans, 1 Seraph, 3 Raeks, 1 or 2 shredders, 2 forsaken, 2 shepherds. Scenario was fire support and i won first turn again.
I deployed fairly central, with the Archidon and totem hunter slightly right to go after the enemy objective. raider was left, the units were split with Nihilators on defense and Immortals on offense which is my normal deployment for them. He deployed very much overloaded on the offensive side, with only 2 Raeks a shredder and shepherd heading towards his friendly objective/flag pair. Totem Hunter Preys on the furthest right Raek.
Turn 1 I ran up, same as the other Zaal games. IR on the Immortals, Awakened Spirit on the Raider. everything runs and spreads out a bit. I am a little cramped on the defensive side by a large water obstacle to the left of the flag. he runs his stuff up, getting into position. Dragon's Blood goes on the central Scythean. nothing makes any attacks yet, a forsaken and shepherd clear some fury.
Turn 2 I get a little greedy and move my raider up, sniping off the loaded forsaken. My units charge up, mostly running but doing a couple of attacks on some forward beasts. I miss 2 charges on Raeks, do a couple points to a Scythean. everything else tries to get into position. I make 2 positioning errors on this turn. first because of the water obstacle on my far left I don't have an AG spread wise, instead I have 2 of them very close together between the flags. second, the archidon is still over to the right lined up on the objective. he should have been a lot more central to have more impact on Marc's movements next turn.
His turn 2 is a brutal one. Thagrosh moves up and feats, then kills one or two models that were tying down his beasts. Manifest Destiny goes up. the Raeks go next doing a ton of work under manifest destiny. they chew through most of my nihilators and 4 immortals. the shredder runs. the Dragons Blood Scythen now has a clear line to my AGs, one of which has last stand. it charges, my defensive strikes do almost nothing. the last stand one rolled a 1,2,2. it uses its animus and kills both AGs. the animus removes them from play, so no Kovass... the other Scythean charges my Raider, easily killing him off. Should have kept him back. then the feat kicks off. the Raeks don't do much, i think i lose all of the remaining nihilators who had toughed, no more immortals die. the Scythean who just killed my raider gets distance to my Soulward. it dies even with high defense and max souls vs manifest destiny. the shredder walks up to Hakaar and bites him. Hakaar is on full souls (arm 21) but he rolls really well and does 5 damage. the scythean then walks over and hits hakaar, doing exactly 5 damage to kill him. and remove HIM from play as well! still no kovass and three AG models down.
Turn 3 is looking grim. not thinking about having my AGs removed from play hurt, as the Kovass is a big part of Zaal's plan to get back in a game on attrition. losing Hakaar and my soulward was just huge. if they both survived, I am in a really good spot to take back this game. if even one of them is alive i have a decent chance. with both gone this is going to be an uphill climb all the way.
Vengeance kicks in and the immortals are able to clear the shredder and do some damage to the Raek. Totem Hunter kills the Raek and sprints back, switching prey to a second Raek. Zaal feats, moving towards the enemy flag gives Awakened Spirit to the Archidon, then puts last stand on the last remaining AG. at least I'll get one Kovass. the immortals put a little damage on the objective and the Scythean and kill off a shepherd. the krea paralyzes the second scythen that is standing with my obective between him and most of my stuff. the AG kills the Scythean that caused so much trouble to my other AGs. the Archidon kills the objective and sprints to the flag. I get 2 points. Had I managed my position better with the archidon the last turn, I could have possibly taken out the second Scythean instead of taking down the objective. kind of a lack-luster feat turn when the enemy still has 2 heavies.
his turn he kills the objective with Thagrosh, runs something in to contest my flag (a shepherd or forsaken, i forget what) and kills off another 1 or 2 immortals. this time the Raek doesn't do nearly as much. with the objective gone, the Scythean is able to get to my Krea and kill her. the turn ends with him dominating to put the score at 3-2 in his favor.
I have a lot that needs to get done in turn 4. first vengeance triggers and i kill the contesting model on my side. now i need to get zaal on the flag to dominate, contest his zone and prevent anything from getting to my flag to contest. he doesn't have a ton of models left at this point. the models in potential contesting range seem to by the Scythean that just ate my krea, both Raeks, and his last shepherd. the seraph looks out of run to contest range, his last forsaken is definitely out. Unfortunately my archidon doesn't have a line to the Scythean. really shouldn't have put it so far out. so the plan becomes have the archidon kill the closest Raek then sprints to tie down the scythean, totem hunter kills the far Raek, the Kovass runs to contest the zone, the immortals tie down the shepherd.
Well that's the plan anyways. I get Zaal to base the flag and put last stand on Totem Hunter and hex blast off Dragons Blood. actually the spell was before moving, but you get the idea. my willbreaker gives pupper master to the archidon. the paingives move to enrage and i have a dumb moment. instead of just having the kovass do it, i try to get some of them to the zone. I spread them so that one can attack the Scythean, one can contest and one can enrage. that puts one in Abomination range of the forsaken AND Thags. I pass one and fail the second. stupid of me. so no enrage for the Archidon. the Archidon pays to charge the Raek and hits on a boost, doing a ton of damage. buy and boost for another hit. I need a 4 on 2 dice to finish it off. I roll 1,1. that's ok, I have puppet master! re-roll into 1,2. so it doesn't die, and now things look very close to impossible. I get the kovass to contest, try to get some stuff in the way of the Scythean who is now not tied down by my heavy and get the immortals to tie down the shepherd and finish off the Raek. totem hunter kills the other Raek. I score and go to 4-3 in my favor now.
on his turn all he has to do is kill a kovass and contest my zone. Thags kills the ghost with no issue. the seraph slip-streams the shepherd out of reach of my immortal. the shepherd runs to my flag and that's the game.
It was a tough game, and I got down too far during his feat turn. I made a show of coming back, it actually came fairly close. I'm not sure it would have worked, but i had a chance if the Archidon finished the Raek. I'm really not sure i could have kept that Scythean in place though, the forsaken could have cleared off the infantry helping to tie down the lanes and do damage to the archidon. Then as long as the archidon doesn't crit on the free strike he gets through. it really came down to playing the Archidon too far out to impact the game and losing 3 AGs to RFP from the same model.
Round 5
Round 5 is against Karl from Dallas, who is also running Legion. He has Vayl1, Vayl2 and something else that i don't remember now. He chose Vayl1 and i decided I better actually play my Mordikaar list. his list had a Scythean, Seraph, Typhon, hex hunters, 1 deathstalker, incubi, succubus, shredder, and some combination of fury management solos. I got first turn on Outflank.
everything ran, swordsmen got hollow, incindiarii got banishing ward.
he ran up in response, killing one nihilator with a deathstalker shot and arching a spell through one of his own beasts to kill one of the void spirits.
I tried to kill most of the hex hunters this turn. my second void spirit ran over to the center of the board and Mordikaar moved up. I swapped Banishing Ward tot he second Void Spirit and feated. I then brought back the dead nihilator. the nihilators charged, killing 4 or 5 hex hunters and the deathstalker. swordsmen killed one more hex hunter and jammed up. Despoiler got into a central position and did his animus (which I'm pretty sure we forgot about in the next turn). incubi tokens were all spent now, so at least they were coming during my feat turn and i knew where they would be.
On his turn he announces that he thinks he can kill Mordikaar. I think he's joking, but he says he has a plan. first he kills my void spirit with a magical sword from a hex hunter, even with the feat defense, and after passing a cmd check. his Scythean moves up and kills a few nihilators. he realizes one of his hex hunters is in the way and tries to kill it, but fails. eventually he finds a way to get rid of the guy in the way and moves Vayl up, shooting her scythean and feating. she arcs a Hoarfrost into Mordikaar and hits but doesn't get the crit stationary. i take the 5 or 6 damage. she then does a rampager on my krea, then finds out how low a krea's MAT is. Typhon moves over and sprays at Mordikaar through 3 or 4 intervening models. this is when he finds out how poltergeist on multiple models works with a spray and only gets the one spray in that misses mordikaar. his feat kicks in and everything runs away except for hex hunters and incubi trying to jam.
On my turn I quickly swap Banishing Ward to Mordikaar to prevent any future nonsense. my nihilators clear their zone of incubi and hex hunters. the swordsmen get out of the way and throw some damage on Typhon. Despoiler charges in and kills Typhon with the help of a crit brutal in there somewhere, even though i forgot to calculate Dark Shroud. something kills an incubi next to despoiler making the poor ex-hex hunter into a void spirit. poor guy couldn't catch a break. the void spirit then charges the scythean and puts in some good damage. incindiarii light a bunch of stuff including Vayl and the succubus on fire. I score a point in each zone, and he's down to 2 heavies, vayl, a shredder and a succubus.
the Succubus dies in a fire. the scythean kills the void spirit and a few models. the seraph shoots at mordikaar but doesn't do much. Vayl kills a few models with spells.
despoiler charges Vayl, kills her in one hit. I was planning on using essence blast, but it didn't have to happen.
At this point, pretty much everyone was finished playing. most people who had a loss dropped after round 4. in a bit of gaming the system, the top 2 tables each had one person who had already qualified for WMW and one who had not. both who had already qualified conceded to their opponents (Marc and Flanzer), so the final was ready to start before round 5 had finished. had one of the guys qualified for WMW a second time, the place and alternate place would be determined by SoS. because they ducked out to get more of their guys in the running, there wasn't going to be much point in fighting for the SoS. those of us still playing went ahead and called it at 5 rounds.
Overall it was a really great event. I got to play against a bunch of really fun opponents and even got to try my hand in the ring against one of the best in the world. it was an awesome Con all around.
Nice games! That Makeda 3 list does look a little funny, but I can't argue with results. I'll have to try it out soon. I really like the Zaal list too. The Archidon should work great with him, and Lightning Strike is a great Animus to have for free.
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