I attended the Warmachine/Hordes Mid-Atlantic Team Tournament this past Saturday 10/9 at the Showcase Battle Bunker in Media, PA. I had been preparing for this tourney over the course of 2 months, building and painting for it specifically. I found out more recently that I wouldn't be able to play every round in the event because of family obligations, but I decided to go for it anyway to try to get in at least one hefty 50 point game.
I thought that I had a strong list and had been studying tactics, synergies, etc. in anticipation. In the end, that didn't help the fact that I hadn't yet played with a couple of my units, and the turns were limited further to 10 minutes each. The turnout at the event was huge: 44 people from 4 states. It was exciting! I've never seen the Battle Bunker that packed. I met a lot of cool, friendly people, and talked to plenty of newbs, but I got matched with a guy who was clearly an experienced player. I was hoping to write about my first tournament victory, but instead I will be writing about a litany of terrible, stupid mistakes and their aftermath.
My opponent fielded Legion of Everblight with Epic Lylyth. I had never played against Legion and tried to look over his cards, but didn't successfully memorize anything except for Lylyth's feat. The scenario was "close quarters" - each player has an 8 inch control area on their half of the board, and the goal was to occupy the other player's area with a unit, solo, or jack/beast to gain a control point, 1st player to 2 points wins.
I lost the opening roll, my opponent opted for me to go first, and took the larger Steamroller deployment. He also had advanced deployment troops which was beneficial in this specific scenario. I admit that I was nervous, and I made my first stupid mistake early: when setting up my army, I formed them as if I was going to be battling to occupy _my_ control area. <sigh.> I was nervous that I did not know any of my opponent's models' rules. I asked him before we started if any of his models had Stealth. Yes, he had a full unit of archers with it, and his Warlock had a spell where she could give it to her battlegroup. Bollocks. So, my 2nd major mistake was (mis)understanding Stealth to mean that those models could not be _targeted_ by a ranged or magical attack. I found out afterwards that you can target them, but the attack automatically misses. In the case of my Vanquishers, which my force heavily relies upon, this does not discount them from still doing a lot of damage and causing problems.
During my first turn, I had a lot of problems with my models starting out clustered, and could not clear the lanes effectively to move them. My main units were slow, SPD 4, and I felt like I didn't get them far out enough to put them into range. I had to march my Exemplar Bastions across the board and they didn't make it far. I forgot to use one of my Vassal's actions. I moved the Flameguard + UA out and cast Ignite on them -- this was not useful since they would not see melee combat that turn. The Choir chanted Passage on my jacks to protect them from Ranged attacks. This wasn't a bad idea, since I intuited that he was running a shooty list.
On my opponent's first turn, he started up the shooting gallery, taking out most of my Flameguard with his archers and setting my Bastions on fire. I split up the damage between the Bastions with Sanguine Bond, but there was still heavy damage. He gave Lylyth's battlegroup the Stealth ability as expected. He moved his cavalry through a forest and threatened my Flameguard Cleansers and attacked my Vanquisher. I was surprised at the ease of taking out my unit, even with shield wall.
For the next turn, I struggled to get my models closer to melee where they could engage his troops with Stealth, but it seemed really slow-going and it was still hard to get units out of each others' way. I upkept Ignite on the Flameguard which would prove to be a waste of focus. I took a shot with a Vanquisher at his Swordsmen and it missed and failed to do any damage with the scatter. I then cast Enliven on that 'Jack to allow him to move the next time he was attacked. The Choir protected two of my jacks with Passage again. I then battled his cavalry and made some good rolls to take them out of the picture. I even had some success with the Cleansers' melee weapons! The bad news was that I was not watching the clock carefully enough and my turn expired without getting to Activate Feora! Not good.
By his next turn, he was ready to pop Lylyth's feat, which spelled doom for me (+4 range on attacks + an extra attack.) He wiped out my entire unit of Flameguard with the exception of 2 models + the UA, and all but 1 Bastion. He managed to push back one of my Vanquishers and knock it down which nullified Enliven. My opponent was extremely fast at making rolls and calculations which is the total opposite of my play style of needing to look at cards and do math in my head at a first grade level where I visualize actual imaginary objects being subtracted. He also took advantage of the once-per-game extra 5 minute turn extension to maximize the casualties.
His feat turn badly weakened my army & I was feeling desperate and unsure of how to proceed. I kept most of the focus on Feora and fed my Vanquisher with souls from the Reclaimer. I forgot the correct reading of his rules and only bought 1 focus point with 3 souls. :( I killed his last cavalry model & still ended up with a focus point going unused. I activated the minifeat on my remaining Flameguard + UA to give them an armor buff. I shook knockdown on the other Vanquisher and made a normal movement to get closer to melee range with his Swordsmen. Time was already running short and I decided that it was critical to activate Feora Prime. At this point, I measured her control area for her feat and only 1 enemy model was affected... I used the remaining focus to cast Engine of Destruction to advance her across the field, hoping to stick around long enough to do the same next turn and use her feat to set his models on fire.
I made a critical mistake at that point, which was to move Feora along the only open path for Engine of Destruction, thus opening her up unexpectedly to multiple lines of sight for shooting attacks. He cleared the way to take debilitating shots on Feora and ended it quickly with some exacting rolls. No one earned any control points or even made it to the other guy's zone: decision on assassination.
I was feeling pretty bad about my skill as a Warmachine player after this game. I had effectively repeated a lot stupid mistakes that I've made before in games and sworn that I would never commit again. But, I learned a few things... A lot of people swear by tournaments as the way to learn quickly by getting to play lots of unforgiving games. I can see that, but I'm feeling strongly at this point about sticking to lower point-level games with more time on the clock for turns. Also, I am realistic about the fact that Hordes and Warmachine rely heavily on knowledge of every faction's models to be successful. Like any game, the people who spend a lot of time learning and memorizing this information have a huge advantage. I love the universe of the Iron Kingdoms, but I still feel like my hobby time as a casual player is better spent on enjoying reading fiction than memorizing stats and abilities for hundreds of models. That said, I could certainly benefit from memorizing the symbols for abilities and having a more confident understanding of what each one signifies. While watching football this afternoon, I realized that, even in the case of pro athletes, mistakes are made, things don't go according to plan, and some bad hands are dealt. Just because teams go 0-5 doesn't mean that they quit a quarter of the way through the season. I have made some hefty time, effort, and money investments in this game, and I enjoy every aspect of the hobby, especially the well-designed rules of the tabletop game. I plan on playing and painting as much as I can leading up to TempleCon 2011, which I will treat as my first ultimate learning experience of all night dice-rolling and battling.
