GV Brasstards : an epic Warmachine/Hordes Team Tournament Saga

The Chaosludik Warmachine Team Mega battle report!!

Yesterday was a big day for the Montreal 's wargaming community as it was the beginning of Chaosludik: a two days gaming convention with tournaments for Warmachine/Hordes, 40k and warhammer fantasy.

Earlier this year,  a friend of mine and blogger on this blog DanM had expressed his wishes to mount a team for the Team Warmachine event happening on Saturday.  Being a great fan of team events, I volunteered to be part of it and so did my boss DanT (yeah "Daniel" is a popular first name around here).

DanT's colossal, quickly airbrushed till 1:37am the night before the tournament.

Chaosludik Team Tournament

What I like with this team tournament is that you have to choose a captain,  lieutenant and sergeant and it will also determine the difficulty of the matchup against the opposing team,
with the captain being the best player and sergeant the worst of that team.
We of course voted non- democratically to put DanM, the instigator of all this and the one with the most skills to be our captain, I would be the lieutenant and DanT the sergeant.

And so the "GV Brasstards" were born!

Now we knew that DanM was a decent Warmachine player but were far less certain of Dan T Warmachine skills and mine so our expectations weren't that high about our ranking, all we wanted was to as least not be last.
With that in mind we started list building and training and then taking a long break from Warmachine and then training again in the final days before the tournament.

List building

For the list building, we decided to play with as few models as possible as the event was a 50 pts Steamroller event with a chess clock of 60 minutes so one of the things DanT and I decided to do was to play with colossal and gargantuan in our list in order to reduce the amount of models and chessclock death risk. DanM, being a better fancier player decided to not play any huge base models but instead to field the newest Warmachine faction: the Cephalix... and to include pistol wraiths in his list because it's a three points worth twenty in a format with people likely to play colossals.

Here's my two lists:
List 1 "the need for fast"
Jarl Skuld
Mountain King
Mulg
Troll Axer
Troll Impaler
Troll Bouncer
Champions (3)
Whelps
= 50/50

A list in wich the Mountain King can run 16" on turn one and trample 12" on turn two then use his 2" 'large base' reach to casterkill the unwary opponent's caster. I think it might super efficient against Cryx because of their usual lack of medium to large bases.
If the assassination opportunity is not there,  you just jam the Mountain King in their face on turn two,  usually destroying an enemy heavy with a charge them cross your fingers and hope it survived while shedding whelps in a way to block charges and attacks from enemy models.

List 2 "Rough Terrain Ahead"
Grissel Marshal of the Kriels
trollkin runebearer
troll impaler
dire troll bomber
dire troll mauler
Kriel warriors (10)
Champions (5)
Sons of Bragg
Krielstone Bearers (6)
Fell caller hero
trollkin sorcerer

Another fast trollblood list but quite slower than the previous one and with a bigger model count, it could count on a screening unit (kriel warriors) and some abilities like ' inhospitable ground' to deal with weaponmasters heavy list and other stuff the first list couldn't.
it also has some shooty assassination potential with a Grissel + bomber duo.

Note: these are the ' final lists ', I playtested with similar lists but decided to apply some last minute changes... and it paid off!

The tournament

DanT and myself, arriving late as always.
(Well we were actually on time if we use the 'DST' also known as 'Dan Standard Time')

Game 1: Les Inconnus = Jocelyn
Scenario: 2 Supply and Demand

We arrived late but just in time and got paired with a team from Quebec: Les Inconnus.
Les Inconnus ' lieutenant was Jocelyn, a circle of Orboros player with two best heavy lists so I decided to choose my 'the need for fast' list because it plays quickly and would be fun in a tooth and claw match. He choose an epic Kaya tier 4 list.
I choose to go first in order to try and get control of the scenario area.
Long story short, I charged my Mountain King on turn 2 against his pureblood and turned it into a troll meal,  killshooted and destroyed a stone. On his turn, the Mountain King took heavy beating and spawned twelve whelps trying to block Jocelyn 's beast from ending it's life but Jocelyn knew how critical it was to deal with the king in one turn as he would heal back 12d3 worth of whelps and mess more of his heavies if left alive and he teleported with his remaining stones a warpwolf stalker in the mountain king 's back,  avoiding the whelps,  to finish the job. I think he even used his feat in order to avoid feeding the Stalker to my Mulg who was not too far behind the king.
The loss of the king was expected and i used Mulg plus my light beats to engage my opponent 's models while the whelps ran everywhere to give their 'annoyance' defense bonus and block charge lanes, in the meantime,  i dominated the central scenario with Jarl and destroyed his objective, scoring three scenario points.
Jocelyn attacked Mulg with a satyr and his stalker while he maneuvered kaya and laris to put a spell on Jarl and then charge with a satyr on him. Thankfully,  I had put my bouncer 's animus on him and escaped the assassination by pushing the satyr 3" away after his first strike.
Jocelyn had ended his turn with twenty- nine seconds left to his clock and two heavy warbeast touching the control zone, maybe I could slam the would-be assassin satyr with my bouncer and kill the other one with Mulg...

A missed treshold check and the bouncer attacked Jarl to try and do what the satyr had not put an end to my dreams of winning by scenario. With kaya not too far,  I decided I would try to go for the assassination, luckily for me,  my opponent had no fury left on her as he expected to have ended the game on his previous turn.
I moved Jarl a little and shot on Kaya, boost to hit, hit, boost damage, eleven points past the armor (I was at dice -2). She has 5 life left, I shot second time, boost to hit, hit = nice the hardest part was done, boost for damage... and i roll low enough that she survives at 1 life! Wtfbbqsauce!!

Although this picture was taken a little before,
 it represents perfectly what I went through when Jarl left Kaya at 1 life.

Well...i cant take the risk of finishing my turn, Jocelyn playing fast enough his threshold checks and killing Jarl with a Satyr... anyway, i hate winning by clock out. So all or nothing it is for me too! Disengaging mulg, i take two free strikes, the Stalker misses while the satyr his and deals 6 points in spirit, a previously untouched column.

This will get ugly reaaal fast!!

 Mulg walks to kaya, reaches and... hits!!! With a nice 2d6+5 he puts an end to that amazing game!!!

Jocely and myself finishing that insane game!

I expected to be stressed at the tournament but instead felt calm and relaxed and I can definitely say that Jocelyn had such a relaxed attitude it felt like playing against an old friend in a game store with no chessclock with us chatting and joking, I would have hated gor him to chessclock after such an epic game...thanks again Jocelyn for that first amazing tournament game.

Team-wise, DanM lost and so did DanT... Teamloss!!

DanT and his opponent.

DanM failing his dice rolls, we wish they had failed him for the last time...

Game 2: Le Beginner = Danny
Scenario: 9 Incursion
I got paired against a friendly guy I had recently talked to: Danny. He had a Brisbane list who could instantly auto-win against my 'the need for fast' list so I choose to take no risks and went into my 'Rough Terrain Ahead' Grissel list. He picked up an epic Haley tier list with a stormwall, two battle-engines, some cygnar mage-gunner cavalry and some stormsmiths shenanigans.

Danny's amazingly beautiful Cygnar in action against someone else.

This game ended very quickly as, despite Danny trying to warn me, I ignored the killing potential of the cygnaran battle-engines, misplaced Grissel and got her killed on Danny's turn two by a rain of electrical attacks.
I wished I had passed my tough check as my Sons of Bragg and champions were in perfect position to wreck the Stormwall and a battle engine while the bomber + mauler would take care of the last.
Oh well, that 's what you get for not listening to your opponent's warnings!

Team-wise: our Captain, DanM won his match and our sergeant, DanT did not... Thanks to me its another...Teamloss!!

Game 3: Les Warmachineurs 1 = Steve
Scenario: 4 Process of Elimination

I had seen Steve a long time ago in tournaments happening for the store I work at but never had the chance to play in said tournaments, now was my time to fight Steve and his 'Butcher Unleashed' list.

I'd like to talk a little about Steve's list as, contrary to my first two games, it wasn't a tierlist and I was really impressed by the synergies in it:
Butcher Unleashed
--Khadoran warjack that is cheap
-Kayazy Assassins + Underboss
-Doomreavers + Attachment
-Kovnik Andrei Malakov
--Behemoth
Mechanics (6)
That's roughly it, there are the odd solos like Gorman di Wulfe and Anastasia di Bray here and there but that is mostly what I remember.

I had never player against Butcher Unleashed (or Butcher3 for those who prefer) but I had eared a lot about him and even been explained how violent he could assassinate your caster/lock...DanT had even experienced that in his second matchup.
I chose my 'Rough Terrain Ahead' Grissel List again and chose to play her a little more offensively as my opponent decided to go first to get in position for the scenario. I deployed Grissel on the front line and activated her first to cast the 'Inhospitable Ground' rough terrain plus, more importantly, 'Dash' to give a serious speed boost to my infantry who then rand to the middle of the map. The 'Inhospitable Ground' helped stop a turn two charge of the Kayazy Assassins and allowed for a turn two attack on them by my Kriel Warriors who had received a fell call boost from the Fell Caller Hero and some battle prayer helping them kill most of the would-be assassins.
On the side, the Sons of Bragg were fighting the Doomreavers, counting on their super-though to survive the day. The Champions, surviving some Behemoth shots from the Behemoth combo (redline from Malakov + Mechanics) were advancing slowly to engage the heavy Khadorans Jack.
The bomber and Impaler took care of the Butcher's dog and, finding it way too close to Grissel, I recast 'Inhospitable Ground', moved her on the side behind a Mauler and sent a pack of Kriel Warriors and Stone Bearers between her and the Butcher Unleashed 'just in case'.

That's when I saw Butcher Unleashed's true power...in a single turn, he massacred my warriors, slew the Stone Bearers, fell down my armor 20 (from stone and feat) and finally managed to move + drag enough things to drag my Dire Troll Mauler and Grissel...who thankfully was barely out of reach thanks to the way the Mauler had been positioned and the size of his base...had his base been a medium or small one, that would have been it for Grissel.
I think I lost 15 models on that Butcher attack...counting though and everything. The Behemoth did show its true purpose in killing some models in the way so Butcher would keep more focus for itself and thankfully, 'Inhospitable Ground' did its intended purpose and prevented him from outright getting the movement necessary to manoeuver and drag Grissel.
Now I had an extremely damaged but still alive Mauler plus a Grissel engaged by two Kayazy and way too close to the most violent model in the Iron Kingdoms...
What was I supposed to do? Disengage Grissel, keep all my fury and risk taking two free strike while moving to Butcher and maybe transfer or cast Dash and be sure to loose two fury?
I decided that at least with Dash my Bomber and Mauler wouldn't take any damage so I healed my Mauler twice so he would get back Spirit and Mind, cast its animus on the Mauler and then Dash to move and smack the Butcher once. The Mauler activated and exacted its revenge on the bold Khadoran! Victory! (But it came close to be a loss by assassination...fifteen models!!! That 'Flashing Blade' spell is vicious!)

Steve packing his models while I tell DanT how close this game came to be...Thanks Dire Troll Mauler!!

MVP: Dire Troll Mauler, not only did it save Grissel's life by its base's obesity, it managed to earn its place by using its animus and one-shooting Butcher.

Team-wise: DanM had the enemy caster (Asphyxious 3) turned backward with a Cephalyx Monstrosity in base to base and a 'Telekinesis' path open...Victory!!....NOT! He managed to roll a 7 on three dice when he needed an 8 for his Slam and it all went down from there as the assassination attempt failed miserably and Exulon got killed by some random Bane Thralls probably unhappy they had been moved by 'Telekinesis'.
DanT lost too so here comes our teamloss!!

Game 4: Another Team from Quebec (Sorry did not remember the Team Name!) = Sebastien
Scenario: 1 Destruction

When arriving at the table I saw that my opponent was playing Cryx with lots of infantry...and although my 'The Need for Fast' is usually excellent against these lists and opponents because of their lack of medium and large bases, I asked our captain to do the Team 'Mini-Feat' which allows two players to swap position. Upon earing us talking about the Mini-Feat, the other team declared they wanted to use theirs too, without even having seen my teammates' lists and armies, definitely showing their intentions of making me face Cryx.
In a show of pure bluff, we secretly decided not to enact any switch, that way, as they were switching their Cryx player up (and knew I wanted DanT to face the legion beast heavy list with his Galleon), DanM would face Cryx a second time in what looked like the exact list he had faced in the match before and I would end up facing a 'living army', hopefully their Captain playing Menoth so my Mountain King and Mulg could 'snack' and 'killshot'.
Bingo! As planned they did the switch we expected.

Sebastien had two lists with lots of infantry and the sole presence of my 'The Need for Fast' forced him into his list with the most warjack (three).
My game against started quite badly as twice I added a minute to my timer instead of starting it. I penalized myself of 2 minutes for my deployment (with my eight models list I take an average of 30 seconds to deploy it) and 5 minutes for my first turn (which is also my average ''animus + quicken + everything run'' time).
Sebastien thought I was trying to cheat, and I must admit I really wasn't happy with my timer not starting but I was so exhausted I just said that I was more than generous by penalizing myself timewise and that the chances of me clocking out with my 8 models list were close to 0, either I was winning fast or I was losing fast!...Although he was right I could have been disqualified for that freakin timer. The rest of the game I double-checked each time I pressed on it and it even tried to not start a third time forcing me to repush the button!!! (I think it even happened to Sebastien once during this game). One of the TO admitted these timers were so cheap they even had been forced to replace half of them during the first tournament day.

Game-wise I sacrificed my Mountain King to gain control of the central area and wreck on heavy jack while the Champions engaged the Menoth Exemplar Errants. One of the Menoth jacks, having 'Reach' managed to finish my Mountain King above the line of Whelps he had shed.
Forcing my opponent on the defensive I Killboxed him once, earning two control points.
Now I would have simply won by scenario but the objective counted as enemy and my opponent could sacrifice any trooper to prevent it from being destroyed, despite Mulg and Jarl messing it up there was too many Flameguard troopers.
Eventually my Domination of the center map never came as the light beast I had sent to prevent my opponent from moving into the area got killed one after the other. Seeing how Sebastien would soon send his jacks to prevent any further win by scenario, I tried to casterkill by having Mulg Trample....but once again the Objective thwarted my plans by preventing any trample power attacks through it...putting Mulg out of Reach from Kreos and his 'Lamentations' some one inch too far.
Lamentations helped my opponent in a big way as Jarl had been harassing it with Magic Bullet (one a turn thanks to that dreaded Lamentations spell!) putting Kreos to 5 life already.
Then came the Fire of Salvation casterkill which I hoped I could have escaped one more turn but Sebastien played his models right! Defeat!
I must give kudos to Sebastien as my unconventional Trollblood list was hard to deal with his army but he managed to survive assassination and prevent my relentless tries for a scenario win.

Team-wise: At this point we had played against the only other 0-3 team of that tournament and DanM, DanT and I managed to all get beaten up to pulp...Defeat!
Do we truly suck? ;)

The Prizes:

Lots and Lots of stuff!!

It came the time to choose which opponent had demonstrated the best Sportsmanship and although I wanted to give it to all my opponents because they all had been truly amazing and given me truly great games (even Danny with his turn two assassination who had warned me!) I chose Jocelyn because my game against him had been so laid back, friendly and fun it put me into a relaxed mood I kept the whole tournament.
I filled the survey for Chaosludik rating everything at 5 because it truly was an amazingly smooth organisation with Judges available when you have questions, the games being on time and even a great meal for the money we spent! (I rated the meal 4 simply because we didnt had knives and it was greasy chicken with fries...but I guess I'm a wuss!)

One of the TO announced the prizes for best Sportsmanship for three ex-aequo persons: Someone I didn't play against...Jocelyn!...and me??!! Nice! Sebastien had given me his best sportsmanship vote despite the early timer issue, thanks, we truly had a nice game despite this horrible timer!

Thanks for your votes, I am happy you had as much fun as I had with you guys!

We came to chose our prizes from the pile, I got a Cephalyx 'Loose your Mind' poster signed by the Privateer Press Staff = Nice!! I love PIP posters (I have 4 at home) and will laminate this one.

As I was leaving the TO told me to stay close as he wasn't done with me for prizes...what??!

The TO calling for...(You can see me realizing with horror why he's calling the names...)

He then called my name, Daniel M's and Daniel T's for...worst team of the tournament, winning the wooden spoons.
Nooooooo!!!! We had one goal: to not be last place, and we failed miserably!

Meet Chaosludik 2014 Team Tournament's worst team: the GV Brasstards

I then went back to pack my army while claping my hands for the other people winning prizes as they all deserved it considering how great this tournament had been....and then my name got called for winning a random draw for Micro-Art Studio's tokens. Needless to say I was spoiled at this tournament!

DanT even won a ''Sac Magique'' to 'ease the pain' as he was this tournament's worst player with a record 4 losses.

Conclusion:

20/20! A+ Totally in Love!
I think this is Club Chaos' fourth iteration of Chaosludik and while I had been present at the first two as a vendor and this one was my first time I could finally attend as a player, I'm 100% certain they will see me next year with my team as this is the most fun I've had in wargaming in a long time!
If you read this blog and live in Canada, US Vermont or New York (or even farther away) circle October on your Calendar: sure it is smaller than Gencon or Templecon but it is well worth the trip, just pretend to your wife you have business in Montreal.

For Chaosludik's link, here it is: http://www.chaosludik.net/

Tournaments are fun: you get to describe the beatings you received! ;)

Thanks for reading and I hope we face each other in the Iron Kingdoms!
Note: If you like the cool pictures used in this Blog, go to one of the TO's album to see some sweet armies, the tournament people and even some stuff from other games...its all there: following this link.