So I attended the Michigan Warmachine Grand Tournament Masters this past weekend, which was a great experience overall. Because it had a painting requirement, I was more limited in my selection of army than I would like to be. I had the most (and most effective) painted models within my Convergence of Cyriss force. So with the completion of a second Transfinite Emergence Projector I was ready to go. You can see the fully painted forces on my tray in the photo above!

This Transfinite Emergence Projector (TEP) got my Convergence of Cyriss force to hit two fully-painted lists. I like this paint scheme still a great deal when it’s done, even if it isn’t particularly fun to paint itself in the process. 

Unfortunately, Convergence is not where my game repetitions were located. Which led me to not the best results at the event. I didn’t do terribly, but I also didn’t set the world on fire. Overall I went 1-2, and blame myself and not understanding where my matchup strengths would have been with my lists.

First round I faced a Isaiah Thompson, from the Detroit-area meta. He fielded Stryker2 from Cygnar, and I dropped Orion with Prime Axiom. It was probably the wrong choice on my part, and a miscalculation–but I also wanted to see what Orion could do. Answer: not much. The prime had a good kill of Ole’ Rowdy, but other than that the Stormlances were just too much pressure to handle. I still nearly killed Stryker2 after his Feat turn, but the dice didn’t go my way. Honestly tho, there were lots of decision points that could have made it so I didn’t need to rely on dice. A fun opponent but a loss for me. 

Second game was against Adam M. from the Buffalo meta. He and I have actually played before in a tourney in Rochester, which was fun. He dropped Vlad2 Armored Corps. I should have dropped Lucant, but again felt like I could learn some with Orion (and was already out of the running with a round one loss). What I learned is that Orion was even worse into this match-up. I managed to keep the game to seven rounds and score enough points to stay in it, but it was just a losing effort the whole way. Orion doesn’t have the oomph to handle heavier armored infantry, and his stuff cannot take the punch either. Was a good game, as he’s a great player and a fun guy to chat with, but again a pretty hefty loss for me. 

Third game was against Tom Dryfuse, a nice guy from the Flint meta. He dropped Caine2 into my Lucant. It was a tough match-up for him, and while he finally finished off the two TEPs that were causing him serious grief, I managed to get the scenario win by that point. This game was a really good learning game in lots of ways for me–in particular that while Lucant is strong with two TEPs, I fear that my interest in playing a caster who does a lot more–is more dynamic–is what balances my decision to play him sometimes. 

All told it was a good learning experience. I played some good games against fun opponents, and I thought pretty hard about my own lists (even while making some mistakes with them). I emerged from it realizing that I need to select dynamic casters for my pairing, and have a real PAIR to play with–not some feeble strategy of a scary list designed to push other sorts of lists into it. I need to stop building answers and start asking questions to move to the next level. So that’s my goal.

365 Points Challenge Progress (2018):

299/365

Battles (Privateer Press):

Overall Totals 2018: 93 (Win/Loss 58/35); 2017: 120 (Win/Loss 86/34): 2016: 123 (Win/Loss: 74/49); 2015: 43 (Win/Loss: 29/14)

Convergence of Cyriss:

3 Wins (Haley3, Vlad1, Caine2) / 11 Losses (Heretic, Rask, Kaelyssa, Xerxis, Siege2, Testament, Bradigus, Vyros2, Ossrum, Stryker2, Vlad2)

Skorne:

10 Wins (Anamag, Sorscha3, Kolgrima, Gaspy2, Feora1, High Reclaimer, Vlad1 x2, Haley2, Skarre3) / 5 Losses (Rahn, Magnus1, Denny1, Haley2, Syvestro)

Legion of Everblight:

38 Wins (Denny1 x2, Scaverous x2, Issyria, Wanderer, Skarre1, Sloan, Naaresh, Gaspy2, Madrak1 x2, Strakov2, Kaya3 x2, Helynna x3, Sorscha2, Kaelyssa, Dreamer, Jaga-Jaga, Denny3, Elara2 x2, Thexus, Sorscha1, Maelok x3, Heretic, Strakov1, Borka2, Caine2, Karchev, Baldur2, Gaspy3, Gaspy1) / 18 Losses (Denny1, Krueger2, Dreamer, Sorscha1, Jaga-Jaga, Old Witch3, Caine1, Issyria, Child, Helynna, Gaspy3 x2, Karchev, Vlad1, Barnabas, Heretic x2, Madrak1)

Protectorate of Menoth:

8 Wins (Gaspy2, Helynna, Vlad2, Sorscha1, Vlad1, Kraye, Garryth, Naaresh) / 1 Loss (Madrak1)

So this past weekend I attended the America’s Team Championship (ATC), playing with great players from my local meta of Pittsburgh. Our team, The Terminus and Friends Variety Hour (named that way because the only caster we were sure would be included for a long time was Terminus), managed to finish in 8th place overall with a 3-2 record as a team. We had some tough matches to be sure, playing our round 3 against the team that won it all (Top of 2 Grab a Brew) from California, and our round 4 against the team that finished 4th overall. You can check out the rounds and standings here and you can find our lists at the Conflict Chamber site. My own performance was not what I hoped it would be. I’m proud of two games: my first game was a solid win against a Haley3 list that I played a good game on, and my third game against Brandon Owens’ Siege2 list from the ATC-winning team ended in a 5 to 7 points spread in his favor at the end of seven rounds. He was ahead in attrition, but I scored first and managed to push it to seven (even while my forces dwindled due to his far better play). The other three games I made some key errors that cost me each game. So 1-1 I’m happy with, but there’s a distinct 0-3 I know I can improve.

Some more ruminations on the ATC are yet to come, but first painting as always… though maybe I need to revise that. I ended up playing Convergence of Cyriss at the ATC because I felt I could get it fully painted in time as a primary reason. And I think I need to put practice and familiarity ahead of painting completion to raise my competitive play level. So yeah, I’ll still list my painting as what I’m most proud of with these in future posts. And I’m doing the 365 points painted in a year challenge again. But expect a bit more acceptance of playing unpainted (and more focus on a single faction, but that’s for the next blog post). Anyhow, on to what I completed for the event:

Eminent Configurator Orion. A really fun piece to paint, as the strange solar calendar neck-piece is fun with him. There was lots of “ooh and ah” as opponents refreshed themselves on his rules, as he’s a very recent release. Pretty sure I didn’t represent him as well as one could. Still… happy with the paint job. 

A second Assimilator to go with Orion. 

And a Prime Axiom to go with him as well. I actually finished painting him after the first day of play in my hotel room overnight–so you’ll see he doesn’t have his porcelain art deco panels in the pic below. 

The ATC itself was a great event and great tournament, and I absolutely intend to return next January if I’m able. I was pleased with how my two lists painted up, and I think I presented a decent question with Lucant and covered his weaknesses with Orion okay.

My two lists, on the tray ready to play before round one!

The place was bustling with people, and one of my regrets was my plan for team T-shirts didn’t pan out. Lots of other teams had them! Gotta plot that for next year.

Our first round opponents (from Missouri). This picture shows the set-up of the play and the size of the room. 155 players is a lot of Warmachine games at once!

Team tournament is a great format in many ways, as you get a bit of control (hopefully) over your games, to ideally face things you won’t be blown away by. But not entirely, as the other team is doing the same.

We kept our “matchups book” ready to go thanks to our team captain Rob.

For each opponent/faction we listed Green for confident, Yellow for iffy, and Red for unlikely to win. You’ll see that the Khador and Retribution in this group had things that would be trouble for me, but I was confident into Cygnar. I got lucky and got paired against Cygnar that round (yay!) and won my game (only one of the weekend… /sob).

In the pressure of the games, I didn’t remember to take photos of all of them. Here’s game one at least–setting up to attack Cygnar and Haley3. Buildings would be my bane in round 4, but in this round it helped me to have that building in the middle for Lucant to hug up against.

The other game I snapped a shot of was round two: this is right after I went for it against Xerxis1. I could get a line on him from Orion, both Assimilators, and the Prime Axiom. And with my Feat up, I had hoped I could punch through his defenses. Unfortunately, the dice thought differently. 5 or less came up waaaay too often. Alas, can’t blame the distribution too much.

My third round ended in the loss on control point differential vs. Siege2 (run by Brandon of the tournament-winning team). My fourth round was a blowout facing John DeMaris’ Testament. I made a critical mistake with my Prime Axiom, but even if I hadn’t my chances in that game were very slim. And my final game was against Bradigus, and I got caught off guard and found Orion assassinated way too early in the game. I do truly loathe circle and their shenanigans, but I also need to be ready for them even in list construction. That’s one of my three takeaways from the event too–that I need to refine how I’m building lists.

So three big takeaways from the ATC 2018:

1. I need to play a single faction more consistently to know them better and elevate both my speed of play and positioning of pieces. Getting reps in would have helped, especially in my Orion games. I ended up playing him three times out of five, and those were my three biggest losses–and it’s because i adopted him late and didn’t practice him nearly enough.
2. I can relax my need to play things painted. I had a couple incomplete models at this tournament, and my list still made me happy on the table. And even if they were all just bare metal: this isn’t the forum for the painting to be something that keeps me from playing what is best.
3. I really enjoy the team format, and definitely want to give this another try again next year.

I’m looking forward to following up on all three of these going forward. Onward to more gaming, more painting, and more fun!

365 Points Challenge Progress (2018):

64/365

Battles (Privateer Press):

Overall Totals 2018: 8 (Win/Loss 1/7); 2017: 120 (Win/Loss 86/34): 2016: 123 (Win/Loss: 74/49); 2015: 43 (Win/Loss: 29/14)

Convergence of Cyriss:

1 Win (Haley3) / 7 Losses (Heretic, Rask, Kaelyssa, Xerxis, Siege2, Testament, Bradigus)

Protectorate of Menoth:

0 Wins / 0 Losses

Flip flop, flip flop. Back to fooling with some Convergence. I managed to paint a bit more for the force, so I took a new Warcaster for a test-spin. Axis, the Harmonic Enforcer. Haven’t finished his paint job yet, so no photos of him. But here’s what I did get done:

Two of the light vectors: a Galvanizer and a Diffuser. These are fun little models, but I’m still somewhat iffy on my paint scheme with them. Dunno, just seems bland–which leads to me always drifting to other models. 

I played three games trying out Axis, and found him to be a fairly enjoyable Warcaster. I like control casters a lot, and I think he has enough control between his Feat and the Razor Wall, that he can get the job done.

My first game with Axis was against Steve’s Retribution, a frequent foe of mine. He gave a good try on killing Axis with a ranged assassination, but the shield guard ability of the servitors in the theme list, along with Axis’ high armor, kept him from being killed. He returned the favor by crashing into her lines and starting the attrition struggle. It ended when she was trapped by the killbox and my models, and couldn’t escape the advance range of the Iron Aggression Inverter. 

Played my second game with Axis against Ryan’s Legion of Everblight force and Vayl2. I was able to close the gap on his infantry with the Transfinite Emergence Projector, and the Feat plus some counter-charging warjacks kept his force from getting meaningfully engaged. With attrition well on my side, he had to take the shot at spell assassination on my Warcaster. It wasn’t a particularly good look to begin with given what I was camping, but it got extra awful as he rolled some misses with spells. Axis waded in and killed Vayl2 himself after weathering the storm. 

My third Axis outing was against a new person in our area, Kyle. He’s getting back into the game after having played in Mark II, and he ran Cryx with Gaspy1 and all the banes. I felt bad, because that’s a dream match-up for Axis’ feat plus Razor Wall. He had to try his feat to get some breathing room, but it didn’t do enough work to buy him an opening. My warjacks cleared the path over two turns, and finally the Inverter got in on his Warcaster and finished the game. He was a fun opponent to play, and he suffered thru the rough treatment of Axis’ control game with aplomb. 

All-in-all I enjoyed Axis hitting the table. Whether I’m really into Convergence for the long term remains to be seen. Something about painting them is just slow with me, and no matter how well I’m doing with games, I tend to be a complete hobbyist–and draw passion from painting models I’m going to field. We’ll see going forward!

365 Points Challenge Progress (2017):

210/365

Battles (Privateer Press):

Overall Totals 2017: 52 (Win/Loss 36/16/0); 2016: 123 (Win/Loss: 74/49/0); 2015: 43 (Win/Loss: 29/14/0)

Trollbloods:

5 Wins (Gaspy1, Terminus, Barnabas, Gunnbjorn, Kaya2) / 1 Loss (Feora3)

Convergence of Cyriss:

9 Wins (Maddox, Haley2, Rask, Helynna, Makeda1, Gorten, Kaelyssa, Vayl2, Gaspy1) / 2 Losses (Venethrax, Helynna)

Protectorate of Menoth:

1 Win (Kaelyssa) / 4 Losses (Makeda1, Deneghra1, Thyron, Kozlov)

Skorne:

8 Wins (Kaelyssa, Nemo3, Zaadesh2, Makeda1 x2, Kaya3, Grayle, MacBain) / 4 Losses (Makeda2, Venethrax, Grayle, Horgle2)

Retribution of Scyrah:

13 Wins (Tanith x2, Venethrax x2, Malekus, Gaspy1, Ragnor, Zaadesh2 x2, Grayle, Borka1, Makeda1, Strakov) / 5 Losses (Zaadesh2, Thyra, Xekaar, Tanith, Gaspy1)