I was lucky enough to be able to play at the Belgian Masters last weekend and it was great to be back to playing a convention level event after all the Wartabling of the last years. As always, I salute the people who designed Wartable and still work on upgrading it, but the experience of playing in person is vastly superior and I loved every minute of it.
I would also like to thank Wout, Tim and the rest of the staff for running the event. Everything went smoothly, the events ran on time, the terrain was great and there was a great ambience. I also apologise for that ´AAAARGHCHON´ pirate joke.
There are also no pictures as I don´t like stopping games to take pictures and also want to avoid putting other people´s faces online without their consent.
Lists
I decided to take my two boxes of Elves with me and see what I was going to play, as there was a plethora of events, from Brawlmachine, to regular Steamrollers, to team events to ´Bad´ caster events, although I quickly realised that I don´t actually own any of the ´bad´ casters in the Retribution roster. My main goal was to play Falcir and Kaelyssa and maybe try out some of the other casters too, especially if I wanted to play Brawlmachine were both of the aforementioned are banned.
Lists played
[Theme] Defenders of Ios
[Kaelyssa 1] Kaelyssa, the Night’s Whisper [+29] with Harpy [9], Manticore [14], Manticore [14] and Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker [4]
Aelyth Vyr, Blade of Nyssor [0(5)]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Elara, Tyro of the Third Chamber [4] with Harpy [9]
Ghost Sniper [0(3)]
Ghost Sniper [0(3)]
Hermit of Henge Hold [0(5)]
Lanyssa Ryssyl, Nyss Sorceress [3]
Priest of Nyssor [4]
House Vyre Electromancers [5]
Ryssovass Defenders (max) [15] with Soulless Escort (1) [1]
Ryssovass Defenders (max) [15] with Soulless Escort (1) [1]
A rather bog standard Kaelyssa Defenders list. I have removed the Aeternae again and put the Manticores back in because I prefer the board control they give me and actually prefer their guns to do consistent work instead of one spectacular shot. I tried a version that swapped out a unit of Defenders for Nyss Hunters, but I was thoroughly let down by them. It could have been the match-up too, but I wasn´t convinced by them.
[Theme] Forges of War
[Falcir 1] Falcir, the Merciless [+28] with Chimera [8], Discordia [18], Manticore [14], Manticore [14] and Fane Knight Guardian [3]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Elara, Tyro of the Third Chamber [4] with Harpy [9]
Hermit of Henge Hold [0(5)]
House Shyeel Artificer [3] with Griffon [8]
House Shyeel Arcanists [0(6)]
House Shyeel Arcanists [0(6)]
Dawnguard Trident [16]
Ah, Falcir, how I love thee, let me count the ways. She wants to be a big bully that controls the board, but then she ends up assassinating people on turn 2 a lot of the time. Let´s see how she did in Belgium.
[Theme] Forges of War
[Issyria 1] Issyria, Sibyl of Dawn [+29] with Chimera [8], Discordia [18], Griffon [8], Griffon [8], Harpy [9] and Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker [4]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Arcanist Mechanik [2]
Hermit of Henge Hold [0(5)]
House Shyeel Artificer [3] with Griffon [8]
House Shyeel Arcanists [0(6)]
House Shyeel Arcanists [0(6)]
Dawnguard Trident [16]
Dawnguard Trident [16]
I have to admit that I have never played Issyria before, barring one game of Solomachine. But I wanted to expand my horizons and what better place than a competitive event? The list tries to hit people hard and fast, while also giving me an out for powerful ranged attacks, such as Crucible Guard Vulcans.
Friday: 4-round Steamroller
I played Falcir and Kaelyssa in this event.
Game 1 vs Dean: Bethayne2 (Recon2)
He ran Bethayne with double Scytheans, there was also a Angelius and a Seraph on her or a Blight Archon, a Raek, a Crok Pot and a Pasta Pot, a Mechanoshredder and Thagrosh0 with Typhon.
He went first and took up board space, I tried to move up without eating his alpha, but forgot that he didn´t just have Slipstream, but also Full Steam for a potential +4 to charges on constructs. This let him kill a Griffon and a Manticore, but doing so exposed Bethayne, who had 4 transfers from fury and her feat, but she also was in charge range of Falcir, who did Falcir things and killed her.
Game 2 vs Fabien: Karchev2 (Invasion)
He ran Karchev2 with 3 Desecrators and 2 Inflictors, Asphyxious with a Scavenger, min Thralls with 3 Brutes in ambush and a few support solos.
We skirmished back and forth for the first three turns, I cleared out an Inflictor plus his objective and did some chip damage to the other jacks, but he was unwilling to commit his feat or caster, so I decided to put Falcir a bit forward to lure him out. However, I forgot to put Falter Courage on the two heavies that could reach her and as a result, his low odds assassination was not that low after all, so Falcir died despite camping 7 Focus.
Game 3 vs Ryan: Gearhart (Split Decision)
He ran the typical Ass Experiments list.
It was a very long dragged out game where Falcir killed a ton of Assault Troopers and Experiments, but I could not crack the Vulcan on account of some Assault Troopers with Ascended Mentalists BS where I couldn´t charge unless I rolled 11s to kill the screening Assault Troopers first. This meant that he could take over the zone and flag in the zone, so even though I cleared both flags and killed his objective, I could not keep up with scoring and lost at the end of round 7.
Game 4 vs Stijn: Skarre1 (King of the Hill)
He ran Skarre1 with 4 Stalkers, double Wraith Engines and double Bane Knights, plus support.
Stijn is a true scholar and gentleman, but Skarre1 doesn´t really play well into Kaelyssa as he had to continuously walk into my guns while I sandpapered off his frontlines. Kaelyssa also easily removed a Stalker each round without having to expose herself, so once I had weathered his feat without losing too much, I could clear out his forces until he was down to his caster and conceded.
I was a bit let down with my result of 2-2, especially as I had been 11-0 on Belgian soil beforehand, but I could see that the first loss was due to being careless and thus felt that I learned at least something from the experience.
Saturday: 4-round Steamroller
Game 1 vs TLH: Makeda2 (King of the Hill)
He ran Makeda2 with full Cetrati, Ferox Riders, double min Praetorian Swordsmen with CA, a Krea and Shaman and some other support. I ran Issyria and Kaelyssa in this event, Kaelyssa with the Nyss Hunters in this event.
This was a weird game as he by rights should just had tried to push me out with a mass of survivable models until I had to commit or lose the scenario. He also had Makeda2 with Deflection and the Force Auras from the Krea and the Shaman behind a wall in the centre of the table, but for some reason he walked Makeda2 over the wall into the central circular zone, then screened her with Cetrati. This meant that I would feat, use a Griffon to slam a Cetrati over her (in all fairness, my opponent thought that the Praetorian behind the Cetrati would stop him when slammed, so the fact that smaller-based models don´t stop slams caught him off guard). This meant that the Tridents just had to slam a few Praetorians to clear line of sight to Makeda and then shoot her to death. It is always a bit sad to win or lose a game because one player misread a rule, but it was my only out, so I took it.
Game 2 vs Fabien: Karchev2 (Recon 2)
Same list as the day before, I ran Issyria again.
As I began this game and easily outthreatened him, even with the feat, he tried a ballsy move of casting Locked Horns, Full Throttle and Death Ward on Karchev (using Meat for the Slaughter by having Barathrum kill a Griffon to save three focus), then moved everything up as far as he could, engaging my Tridents and warjacks with his Desecrators and Barathrum while the two Inflictors stood in front of Karchev, with Karchev and one of them in a trench to boot. Unfortunately for him, I first engaged Barathrum with a Chimera to avoid Countercharge shenanigans, then moved up the Hermit with his -2 ARM aura. Issyria then feated, used Discordia´s spray to give everyone in the trench -2 DEF, before one Trident slammed the Hermit into the trench and unloaded into Karchev. Discordia then slammed an Inflictor over Karchev, the Trident slammed away the other Inflictor to make room for at least one Griffon and put even more bullets into Karchev before the Griffon took a free strike from a Desecrator, but survived it with all systems intact to take out the foul Cryxian Khadoran amalgamation.
Game 3 vs Ben: Feora3 (Bunkers)
Yes, that is the ´won every major event at least once´ Ben from Germany. He ran Feora3 with a Judicator, both juniors with 3 Redeemers between them, two Archons and support. I ran the Kaelyssa list with the Nyss Hunters.
He got to choose sides and chose one with a huge Squall, so he could park all his important models in there and bombard me with Redeemers. Unfortunately, my Nyss Hunters learnt that lesson the hard way and got shot to bits bottom of round 1. I put up a brave fight and killed the Judicator and both Archons, as well as some more models, but the Squall meant that I could never really threaten his warcaster, even if he hadn´t had that silly Living Covenant to pull her back each turn after putting up an Incite bubble. I conceded when I was basically tabled.
Game 4 vs Thomas: Kromac2 (Invasion)
He ran Kromac2 with Ghetorix, Stalker and some Goat, Krueger0 with a Woldwyrd, Una1 with a Storm Raptor, some outflanking Wolves with CA and support. I ran Issyria.
I was able to Blinding Light the Storm Raptor bottom of one, so he had to feat defensively turn 2. He also wanted to charge the ambushing Wolves into a Trident, but the Wayfarer missed the Hunter´s Mark he needed to let them reach it. However, he put his Satyr in a position where I could slam it over Krueger0 in my feat turn, then shoot the prone Krueger0 and Una1 to death, as well as clearing out the Wolves in my flank. This meant that I could take over the game and remove most of his game pieces. He still managed a pretty convincing assassination run on Issyria with the Storm Raptor (after Kromac had taken it over the turn before) as I had misplaced Discordia a bit too far from her for comfort. Fortunately, I was able to reduce the damage by fifteen with Focus and Issyria survived on two boxes. My opponent clocked out at this point too.
This meant I was 3-1 and 4th out of 16 as my first two opponents had dropped early on to play another event. I was happier with my performance this tournament, though I made some mistakes against Ben that didn´t help against that calibre of player.
Sunday: 2-round 3-man team event
I teamed up with two chaps from the UK, Dan playing Retribution (Kaelyssa and Garryth2) and David playing Shae Pirates. As I could not play Kaelyssa and was also a bit too tired to deal with infantry armies, I simply put together Falcir and Issyria.
Game 1 vs Stijn: Scaverous (Split Decision)
Stijn again, this time with Scaverous against my Issyria. He ran the Deathjack, 2 Rippers and Barathrum, Aiakos ran Kharybdis and Asphyxious ran a Talon, plus some solos and a Thrall squad with 3 Brutes in ambush.
Unfortunately for Stijn, he was too conservative and while he killed one Trident with Barathrum, my counterattack killed Barathrum, a Deathripper and Kharybdis, which meant that his second attack only managed to remove the second Trident (after TKing it into the ambushing Thralls) and a Griffon. Crucially, he hadn´t put a model on his flag to score in my second turn and not put a Machine Wraith in the zone to score the flag or contest the zone, so as I was 2-1 starting my third turn (he played first), I only had to move the Hermit up to contest his flag and put -2 ARM on the objective, kill that with the Harpy and Discordia (potentially having another go with Issyria´s Ancillary Attack), run a Mechanic to the flag in the zone, a unit of Arcanists to score the zone and move Issyria over to my flag to score 4 points and win 6-1 on scenario.
Unfortunately, my team mates could not win their games.
Game 2 vs Cathol: Lylyth1 (Split Decision)
He ran Lylyth1 with an Archangel, Golab, a Bolt Thrower, an Archon with an Angelius, some Striders and Deathstalkers, a Hellmouth and solos. I dropped Falcir.
He went first, I moved up but avoiding the Angel´s threat range. I also slammed Golab into the objective with Force Hammer through the Chimera just out of spite. Golab could reach the Chimera under Full Steam after a Deathstalker had shot it for a point to trigger Finisher. Golab killed it and dinged up a Griffon too. Lylyth had to move up a bit to keep Golab in her control area. She also shot a Manticore to put Parasite on it and boosted a damage roll into it. Finally, the Archangel moved up and killed the Manticore before repositioning next to Lylyth. Which was a mistake as it meant that Elara could put Ghost Walk on Falcir, the Trident placed her two inches further up, then she used Vanish to flicker 3 inches forward and then she charged the Archangel to get Lylyth into her melee range. She feated, put up Full Throttle and then carved up Lylyth.
My team also won their games, so we went 3-0 that round.
So my weekend started with Falcir eating an alpha and then killing a Legion caster, then ended with her doing the same in the tenth game. I am happy with my lists and think my overall performance was good, but with room for improvement. More importantly, I am still eager to play Retribution, though I might try some Protectorate too over the next few weeks.
The puntastic wargamer 