According to the Pressgangers 144 signed up for the Masters event, 105 showed up. We played 4 rounds to get the cut to the top 8. Either 4 wins in a row, or 3 wins in a row followed by a loss and really good strength of schedule would be needed to advance.
The lists I took with me:
Adeptus Rahn
Phoenix
Chimera
Dawnguard Sentinels (full) with UA
House Shyeel Battle Mages x2
Mage Hunter Infiltrators (min) with Eiryss3
House Shyeel Magister x2
Fane Knight Skereth Issyen
Arcanist x2
Ravyn, Eternal Light
Imperatus
Sylys Wyshnylyr
Mage Hunter Strike Force (full) with UA
Dawnguard Invictors (full) with UA
Stormfall Archers
Lady Aiyanna and Master Holt
Eiryss2
House Shyeel Artificer
Dawnguard Destor Thane
Arcanist
My thought is to play Rahn as my primary list because with all the Issyria/Vyros2 that Ret players are taking these days I'm guessing not too many people will be expecting Mittens. The worst matchups I foresee for Rahn would be control casters like Haley2, Harbinger, eDenny and the like along with Menoth in general with all the anti magic they bring. As Ravyn normally has good game against a good number of those, she's in as my backup.
There are a couple reasons why the Ravyn list looks a little different than the norm. I have a Hyperion, actually 2 if I ever get the second one painted, but in most instances the control casters I want to take Ravyn up against will have a Gorman, Time Bomb, etc to deal with one big target. So I wanted to diversify my threats a little more. Also, in my testing with double Stormfall and Discordia I was almost never able to take out all of the enemy infantry before they got to me with something. That's why the Invictors were in to do double duty as a countercharge unit, and Imperatus with his pocket Arcanist should make my opponent think twice before trying to jam with a fast heavy to block me up. That's the plan anyways.
Round 1: Vs Josh's Skorne
Rasheth (tier 4)
Bronzeback
Titan Sentry
Titan Gladiator
Basilisk Drake x2
Agonizer x2
Paingiver Taskmaster
Gatorman Posse (full)
Beasthandlers (min)
Bog Trog Ambushers
Swamp Gobbers
Zaal
Kovaas
Titan Gladiator
Molik Karn
Hakaar
Ancestral Guardian x2
Tyrant Commander & Standard
Nihilators (full)
Cataphract Cetrati (full)
Venator Slingers (min)
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| The opposing Skorne horde |
Josh drops Rasheth against my Rahn list. I win first turn and do the normal everybody runs thing. He advances, puts Rasheth on a hill with a few models in front of him (Gladiator, Agonizer, Drake I think it was) and passes turn.
Rahn walks forward, checks command area to know where all of his minions can advance to, and he pops his feat. Force Hammer knocks the titan away, then the Fane Knight clears the Drake. The first unit of Mittens pull Fatty up a little bit but fail to kill the agonizer so I can't get Rasheth into range of the sentinels. My 2nd unit of mittens are jammed up on my other flank and can't get into range, leaving Rasheth on 6 boxes when I have to pass turn.
He tosses carnivore on a Titan then feats. I forget the exact order he did all of this, but he drops half my Sentinels, takes the arcnode off the Chimera and locks up my Phoenix with his Titan Sentry. His Drake sprays hitting my Sentinel UA but only does 4 damage so they still keep their vengeance for next turn as he has nothing left to use.
Between their vengeance moves, a few TK's from Rahn and the remaining Mittens pulling Rasheth up towards them, 4 Sentinels have lanes to charge Rasheth and they drop him. I almost have a complete mental breakdown as I also charged his drake with 2 Sentinels - if I had killed the Drake, that would have been 3 more transfers from the fury reaved and I would not have been able to kill Rasheth. The only reason they fail to kill the Drake is that they are still under Rasheth's feat lowering their STR. I need to wake up more before going to these events - early morning rounds cause my brain to not work well. Current record:1-0
Round 2: Vs Marc's Cygnar
Siege
Squire
Stormwall
Gorman
Reinholdt
Journeyman
Eiryss2
Pendrake
Rangers
Tempest Gun Mage Pistoleers w/UA
Tempest Blazers (max)
Haley2
Squire
Thorn
Stormwall
Journeyman
Tempest Gune Mage Pistoleers w/UA
Nyss Hunters (max)
Alexia & Risen
He and I both know I'm going to play Ravyn. He doesn't want to play eHaley into it, and takes Siege as he can survive the Strike Force better with a much higher armor. Marc wins first turn and advances everything up to about the 16-18" mark or so. Looking at the table, it was pretty clear what to do - Ravyn casts snipe on the Strike Force, feats and walks up. Strike Force remove Arcane Gun Mages from the game, Stormfalls took out 4 of the Rangers, and my Invictors took out the last Rangers and then 3 Tempest Blazers with help from the Destor Thane.
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| The aftermath of turn 1. |
Turns 3 and 4 I take out his Stormwall and in the process lose almost all of my Invictors to some ground pounder attacks. While all of that was going on, Gorman black oiled Imperatus who was then Force Hammered back to almost outside the control zone (2" slam when 3" would have been enough to get him out) before the Destor Thane then charged and took out Gorman.
My Eiryss2 was also charged by his Eiryss2 and started a stupidly long, rather futile slap fight. I would like to refer to this as the "Epic Eiryss Slap Fight 2015." 10's to hit, dice minus 6 for damage when they did hit (as all of the hits that were scored were with the POW 6 offhand weapons). Both of them got down to 1 box of health left, then Imperatus did a bosted attack to finish his Eiryss off. This gave me control of both points, and with Ravyn dominating the 2nd zone I go to win 5-0 on control points as Marc only has Siege, his Journeyman and Reinholdt left on the table. Record goes up to 2-0
Round 3: Vs Dan's Cryx
Skarre1
Helldiver x2
Skarlock
Bane Knights (max) x3
Mechanithralls (max) x2
Mechanithralls (min)
Necrosurgeon x2
Machine Wraith
Denny2 (Body and Soul tier 4)
Kraken
RipJaw
Necrotech
Warwitch Siren x2
Ragman
Mechanithralls min w/ 3 Brute Thralls
Mechanithralls min w/ 3 Brute Thralls
Cephalyx Overlords x2
Cephalyx Mind Slaver (min)
In my initial planning I figured that Rahn will probably have a hard time with eDenny so I drop Ravyn, and he does drop Denehgra. I go first moving up to about the 20" mark with Strike Force, others about 4" behind. Feat turn for Ravyn on turn 2 and I take out about half of his infantry. I however have somewhat poor target priority I think in retrospect and should have targeted his cephelyx models more.
 |
| Aftermath of Denny's feat turn. The Colossal wreck marker is standing in for the Kraken that didn't want to stand on the wonderful hills we had at the event. |
Denny feats back, and the sprays from the Cephelax just decimate my forces. I manage to score 2 control points by killing his objective and dominating the left flag, but he runs Denny to the back of the table (2" or so from the back edge) and keeps hiding. I keep tossing models into the zone to contest, but eventually I run out of models and even though Ravyn survives 3 melee hits from the Kraken as she's going back and forth killing everything she can, she's my last model left on the board and I lose 5-2 on control points when my oponent was down to 42 seconds left on his death clock.
A very well fought game on his part, and me not knowing what his stuff did enough to know who to target out during Ravyn's feat gives him the close win. If I had targeted the Cephelax I might have had a chance to attrition out against the mechanithralls and the Kraken, but I didn't, and as always in Warmahordes, if you don't know what something does, odds are it will kill you. I wished Dan good luck winning his last game and I drop to a 2-1 record. (Unfortunately I heard he lost his last round so he didn't make top 8)
Round 4: Vs Cordell's Legion
Abby2
Scythean x2
Seraph
Raek x2
Shredder x2
Harrier
Forsaken x2
Strider Blightblades
Incubi
Lylyth2
Naga
Ravagore x3
Typhon
2 Point model in battlegroup I can't make out, possibly starts with an F?
Forsaken x2
Shepard x2
I really expected him to play eLylyth and destroy me as I don't really have an anti Legion list (bad planning on my part), but he was thinking he had to go for control points in case his SoS pushed him into the tie breaks assuming he could win. I understand his logic, but he probably knows I'm going to play Rahn, and eAbby vs Rahn does not look like that good of a matchup for him in my mind.
 |
| Abby thinks she'll be safe from the Mittens if she's behind a wall. *giggle* |
On his feat turn he kills all of my Sentinels, the Infiltrators, the Fane Knight, Eiryss3, wrecks my Phoenix and leaves the Chimera on one box for his left arm. Ouch. He however leaves all of the Mittens alive. Yay! Rahn walks up to get a good angle, feats, TK's Abby to be 2 inches closer and facing backwards so the Mittens all get back strikes, then tosses some Chain Blasts into her to soften her up.
The Mittens knock her down with the first Force Bolt, bounce her around a little just for fun, and after just the 2 Chain Blasts, 5 fully boosted Force Bolts and 2 Whip Snaps Abby takes the dirt nap.
My record goes up to 3-1, but my Tie breaks are fairly weak on SoS. As of the start of round 4 my opponents had 1, 2 and 3 wins respectively. My 3rd round opponent lost in round 4, but my first 2 opponents both won putting me up to a total of 8 SoS points. There were many people though that went 3-0 then lost in final round and had over a dozen SoS points each, so I'm pushed down to 21st place when all is said and done. Just barely in the top 20%, but I'm ok with that for this being my first national level Masters event.
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