Lock and Load prep, part 2 - with lists!

Lock and Load is coming up in a little over a month, and I've been so busy playing around with the new toys from Gargantuans that I haven't really devoted much time to prepping for 'Con season. It's probably a good thing I didn't end up doing Adepticon this year, since I would have gone without really knowing what I was going to do. To make things worse, I went and played the Mammoth with every Skorne caster and reminded myself how fun some of the less common ones are.

I've finally started cutting down the lists and picking out what casters and lists I want to use at Lock and Load. It's hard to pick in a faction like Skorne with a ton of caster styles without really having a top 3 that are just flat out better than others (Haley, Haley, Caine? Again?). I have a lot of casters I like, and most of them are competitive, if not top tier. After talking myself in circles over the course of 2 or 3 weeks, building lists, playing random casters and hammering out tons of theories, I finally decided I just needed to stop, pick 3 casters and run with it. So for the next 6 weeks, I will approaching casual games like steamroller games. I have my three lists, and depending on opponent faction I will pick the one I think will work best. that way, if I do find holes in my lists I can possibly change my mind, but otherwise I'm locking in.

Lock and Load prep - Part 1

We're going to take a break from your regularly scheduled blogging this week. Unfortunately, I wasn't actually able to get down to the gaming store this week to continue my Mammoth battle reports. So I guess you'll just have to wait until next week to see if I can manage to essence blast a Mammoth all over an enemy caster.

With all these fun new releases coming out, and all my playing with proxied models, I haven't been focusing very much on my competitive lists. I've been dabbling with Ret, and playing a lot of my casters that are more fun to play, but not really the ones I reach for in tournaments. Unfortunately, that got me a bit rusty with my standard casters (as evidenced by my pMorghoul and eMakeda battle reports...). And with Lock and Load coming up in a mere two months, I need to start focusing a bit.

Over the next two months, I will be trying to nail down some choices on what casters and lists I want to use for Lock and Load (and WarGamesCon the very next weekend). And of course once I get my casters picked, I need some serious practice with them. I'll be talking about my lists and prep on my blog as I go.

Caster Pairings.

For any given Steamroller event, I probably spend as much time building lists and figuring out caster pairings as I do actually playing games. Of course I don't spend that much time planning lists every time I play in a Steamroller, sometimes I use a two-list combo that I've had some success with in the past. but I put in that time at some point, planning ahead for a competitive event.

Recently, I got an email from a reader (I know, shocking! someone other than my wife actually reads my stuff after all) asking about list composition for a competitive event. Do I take two generic, all comers lists? one for scenario and one for assassination? one for alpha strike and one for grind? I thought it was an interesting question that deserved its own article.

As a side note, this article is going to focus on Skorne. I'm still so new to Retribution that I'm barely figuring out casters right now and am nowhere near being able to give advise on playing them in events. Even though I'll be focused on Skorne, the ideas presented should apply to any given faction. the examples will just have to shift to whatever your chosen faction may be.

Oh, and as a warning, this is going to be a long one.

Expand Your Horizons

The Steamroller format continues to be the primary tournament setting for WM/H, but it is not the only way to play. could playing non-steamroller events actually help your game?


I want to start off by saying that I consider myself a competitive Warmachine player. I may be a complete unknown in the National meta, but I've got a few wins under my belt. I play in every tournament I can get to, and I've done well in a few of those events. But Steamroller events aren't the only way to play. In this article, I want to look at a few of the advantages to playing in some of the extra events that Privateer Press puts on for their players.

Every year, Privateer Press puts on a number of special events. Some of these events are to promote a new book release (Domination/Wrath release events, Collosals release events, etc). There are ongoing events like the Journeyman league and this year's War Torn Alliances seasonal leagues. There are some one-off events like the Summer Rampage or the Longest Night event. I think these events are one of the things Privateer really has going for them. Not only do they make a great game, but they support the community through these cool events. But why play in these events instead of just playing all Steamroller, all the time?

Wargamescon Wrap-Up

This past weekend was the third wargamescon/bolscon I have been to, and the first one where I didn't play a single game of 40k. The con was a ton of fun, as always, and one of the events I look forward to every year. Even though WGC isn't a big Warmachine event (yet) I still wanted to talk a bit about my experience there. I'm hoping in the next few years that the event will continue to grow and get some wider attention.

Domination Release Event - Battle Reports

This weekend I went down to San Antonio with a few other austinites for a Domination release event. Actually ended up being a lot of people from austin, but I did get to play some new opponents as well. it was an interesting tournament, using one scenario all day and cramming in as many rounds as possible during the day. you got points for playing, more points for winning, with bonus points for playing against new factions and players. and then there was a whole list of other bonuses you could get once per tournament. so in the end winning the games wasn't worth a whole lot compared to all the other points you could get, which made things interesting (in a good way).

I'm reconstructing my rounds from memory, some bits might be missing. Warning, this is going to be a rather large post, so if you're not really interested in a bunch of random battle reports, you might want to just skip over this one. I enjoy writing reports, though, as it helps me process my games and think about what went well and what I need work on.

Harlequins at WarGamesCon

So I think I have finally recovered fully from wargamescon (almost a month later), and now I've finally gotten around to writing up how my army did in the team tournament. Of course, as always I was terrible at taking pictures. In fact, I didn't take a single picture of any of the armies I played against! I took pictures as I milled around looking at cool stuff, but none of them ended up being team tournament opponents. oh well. Because of a lack of pictures, I will be writing up the short and sweet version of our battles.

the army lists that we used (along with the fluff piece that we submitted with the army) can be found  here

The Eldar Go To War (GamesCon)

It’s been a while since my last update. Real life and other projects keep getting in the way. Hope I haven’t been disappointing all 2 of my followers J

I have not been playing my Harlequins a whole lot since Adepticon, unfortunately. After playing them nonstop from December to April, I was ready to let my other armies out to see the light of day again.

Tomorrow is the third annual WarGamesCon (third if you count BOLSCON). This year I will be playing my Harlequins alongside a force of craftworld elder in the 40k team tournament. 3 rounds with 2000 points per side.

Road To Adepticon - And 'Ere We Go!

Adepticon kicks off tomorrow night. I am finally finished painting, basing and packing my models, my lists are printed and triple-checked, and everything is in the car ready to go. tonight we will be on our way to Chicago for the biggest tournament I have ever played in. I've never been to Adepticon before, so I am super pumped about it.

On top of that, I actually managed to get everything finished. There were a few spots in there where it looked like I would run out of time, and I was worried that a squad or two would have to make do with little to no detailing just to get a legal fully-painted army on the table. Somehow I managed to build, convert, paint and base an entire 1850 point army in 3 months. Sweet! and on top of that, I painted up the last 15 or so models I needed for gladiator, should I lose on Friday.

with that said, I wanted to post some pictures of my army I took last night as a finished project. I am also putting up my finalized list for the championship tournament. Enjoy

Weekend Tournament Results

This weekend was my second local tournament using my Harlequin force. it was an 1850 point tournament without any kind of restrictions/comp score. the list I brought was (using Codex:DE names for simplicity...):

Archon - drugs, huskblade, soultrap, shadowfield, blast pistol
Heamonculus1 - WWP, venom blade
Heamonculus2 - WWP, venom blade, crucible of malediction

7 incubi - klaivex with glaives
7 harlequins - shadowseer, master, 2 fusion pistols, kisses
4 trueborn - blasters

15 wyches - leader w/agonizer, 2 shardnets, haywires
15 wyches - leader w/agonizer/, 2 razorflails, haywires
10 wyches - leader w/agonizer/blast pistol, haywires

6 reavers - heat lances, cluster caltrops

Talos - CC weapon, chainflails, haywire blaster


 

Road To Adepticon

This year I will (finally!) be making the trip up to Chicago for Adepticon. This will be only my second GT, so I am pumped! When Adepticon signup opened, I registered within the first week. At the time my Harlequin army was still little more than an idea, and I only had a handful of assembled models. It seemed almost impossible to get all of that done before Adepticon, but I made it my goal anyways. A month out and suddenly things look much better! Assuming I don't run into huge problems finishing my army out, I should be able to field a fully painted, fully based, all Harlequin army! After the jump I will talk a bit about my progress and list