So back from my first ever Warmachine/Hordes tournament and went much better than expected! There were 15 players and I ended up going 2-1, losing first round (results aren’t up yet but that means I placed in the top half of the tournament – so yay). As usual, let’s do the quick recap (list seen here) but before we get into that, couple of thoughts on first tournament. This was probably aided however by playing two armies I knew really well and one that I knew the general gist of rather than something I’ve never seen before.

I thought Deathclock was going to be massive – it wasn’t. First game was probably the worst in it was weighing on my mind a lot but I had eight minutes to spare and didn’t feel like any of my decisions were rushed. Still no where near as comfortable with the system as with 40k but getting there. The list quality in general was pretty high – didn’t see any real major *facepalm* lists but I didn’t look too closely either.

So the games (and forgive me but I cannot remember scenario names) –

Round 1 v pSevy;

I know pSevy well so this was good, one thing I didn’t need to battle was knowledge. TFG + Errants and multiple Reckoners, Redeemer, Blessing along with the usual goodies made up this list and initially our exchanges went well – I had pushed him to the back of zones mostly and had used the Stalker to pop in and out of infantry red mist however; I got my Warpskins just a bit too far up and the unit was wiped so I couldn’t bring them back with Feat. When my Bloodtrackers were brought back, they failed a Terror check and the attrition war was then being won solidly by Menoth. I really felt the lack of a second Stalker here with all the infantry floating around as even a couple of Errants/TFG could put some hurt into something. In the end, only had eMorv plus stones left before eMorv had a Reckoner applied to her face.

Round 2 v 3Vlad;

Lots of horsies but not a ton of infantry – if there had been Iron Fang Pikemen or Winterguard Infantry I think this would have been a lot harder however; this was also aided by the opponent spreading out (which advantaged him given the right objective disappeared but let me play 50 points versus 40ish). My speed allowed me to jam him further up and pin 3Vlad in and get the first strike with stones and thus got an assassination off on Turn 3. I had some really hot dice with the Bloodtrackers against his cavalry unit but that wasn’t going to stop the Stalker teleporting in in the end.

Round 3 v Issyria;

My opponent had the option between Issy and Rahn and obviously went for Issy who’s feat would see through all the Stealth in my army. Issy feated early and dropped a lot of my army but that also took a lot of my opponent’s playing time away. I clawed back but didn’t jam enough in my following turn and left eMorv just on the cusp of potentially being brought low (five health, one transfer) however; without an Arc Node to drop Blinding Light on eMorv and using just basic RAT, she survived and I was able to build her health back up and Feat back most of my army late game. By that point both armies had been attritioned pretty heavily (I death knelled 6 Halbs!) and Feating back 10 more infantry models sealed the deal. My opponent ran out of time but only had Issy, a couple of solos and a half damaged Discordia left.

Conclusion

It was fun and even with the Deathclock, there wasn’t an “anal gamer” experience in terms of must do this and that, etc. I again think I got lucky in getting lists / casters I know so looking forward to getting in some games against different people with lists / armies I’m less aware of.

GGs to all and I’ll put up full battle reports soon (along with some 40k ones…).