BM 2017 (Jan 27 - 29) Final Standings and Summary

Here are the final results of the tournament. I still manage to come second due to my high number of control points and an identical strength of schedule to the 3rd placed position.

final standings

All in all it was a great tournament with very agreable games and opponents and I am looking forward to the next Belgian Masters.

My main list for this event was actually the Nemo3 list, as I really wanted to play it. Its damage is strong, especially due to its long threat ranges, but the Battleengines hate to shoot at def12+ as typically you cannot boost and it is difficult to get their native +2 RAT to electrical shooting during the early rounds of the game. 
However, two hard to kill Battleengines plus a hard to kill Arc node (my typical Electrify target) are a question on their own to be answered. 
Knowledgable players will know how to play around it and where to sacrifice which activation to counter repulsor field. 
The list is a blast to play, so try it and enjoy it.

I am looking forward to my next tournament, I will probably stay with my Nemo3 Haley2 Pairing, though I am now considering the other themes as well. Hopefully I will find more time for more games and more reports, I hope they are helpful and enjoyable to read.

BM 2017 (Jan 27 - 29) Game 5: Nemo3 vs Wurmwood - Finals

Tom is actually the only opponent I had in 2017 before this tournament, as he is my Wednesday’s training partner and we already had the matchup to come played 2 times this year. He would drop wormwood into me and I would respond with ….. Nemo3! 

My general game plan against Wurmwood with Nemo3 is to sit out his feat giving up CP but forcing him to split up and then counterattack with my feat. The dangers are Ghetorix to the face and losing on scenario when he gets too much after his feat. So I had to stay further away than 17" with Nemo3, be unreachable or have Electrify and focus on Nemo3 to survive somehow, while keeping the scenario live.

Wurmwood - Fuel Cache
- Cassius
- Megalith
- Pureblood
- Ghetorix
- Feral
Sentry Stone
Sentry Stone
Shifting Stones
Shifting Stones
Blackclad Wayfarer
Farrow Bone Grinders
Gobber Chef

He won the roll and took first, we were playing Extraction and there was a forest on the left flank with a wall blocking just a bit up the field before my objective. On top of that was also some rough terrain just between the forest and my deployment zone. There was an obstruction more to my side on the right flank and a hill on his side. 

My gameplan was actually to take the middle wall with the Lancer and Dynamo, as he would not be able to get them down with that wall and without reach (so only Ghetorix) and one Stormstrider on each flank. Nemo3 wanted to hide behind the obstruction from Ghetorix.

Deployment:

He deployed fairly central but Ghetorix was already tending to my right flank. 

I deployed as planned and choose my Lances to try to flank hard on my right flank, so he would not be able to use his forests to block me completely of in later turns.

Circle top of 1

He advanced deployed the sentry’s symmetrical and Wurmwood in the middle. He used his Stones as forcehammer slam stoppers, something he learned from one of our previous games. His Bone Grinders were used for souls. 
Then moved everything up out of shooting range, one Mannikin of each unit was killed by him.

Cygnar bottom of 1

But the Mannikins were not out of leap/chain lighning range. I ran up a Lance to leap two Mannikins dead on the right flank with Nemo3. At the same time the Lancer ran up behind the wall to be used for a chain lightning onto the other 2 Mannikins from the left flank. I moved everything else up, out of any charge ranges.

Nemo3 then proceeded From to a position from which he could successfully kill the right side mannikins and could run to my designated safe spot next turn. On the left side I (stupidly) revised my chain lightning plan in order to slam Ghetorix 0” (due to the blocker stone). This was a clear mistake as Ghetorix was not in charge range of anything (besides the leap target Lance on the right) and could shake the knockdown anyways.

Circle top of 2

Incoming feat turn, Ghetorix killed the Lance and the Mannikin on the right does 2 damage to another one. Bad positioning and the still living left mannikins saw me lose Laddermore in the middle to the Pureblood, Megalith and a Mannikin.

Cygnar bottom of 2

So my plan was to move out of charge range, forcing him to use hellmouths, as I can’t avoid this extension and stay scenario relevant at the same time. When I would have ran Nemo3 to safety, I was expecting only one hellmouth and could then have gone for the attrition with my feat afterwards. 

Again I stupidly forget my battle plan and decide it would be better to cast some spells: Bringing the Lancer on range to Megalith to chain lightning the blackclad to death, which did not work.

On top of that Nemo3 could not reach his safespot without running and I could not find a spot 17”+ away from Ghetorix. I settled with a Firefly and my objective in the way. 

Everything else shuffled up to counterpunch if Nemo3 should survive, the left Battleengine contested.

Circle top of 3

He told me that he has now 35 minutes to plan my assassination and did so. 

In the end the solution was to hellmouth Ghetorix to the left, primal him to charge the hunter’s marked objective and getting Nemo3 in Melee. There was the surviving blackclads participation, Karma!

Nemo3 did die with the first attack if memory serves correctly.

Summary:

Clear mistakes on my side were punished by Tom directly netting him the win in this game and as well for this tournament. Even without the Blackclad he would have found a way to kill Nemo3 as he was in a really bad position.

He had a very clean and neat game and had earned this tournament victory, sadly by now he has returned to France from his stay in Cologne, so it will be more difficult for us to play games in the future. 

I want to take this opportunity to wish him all the best in his upcoming endeavours. Thank you Tom!

BM 2017 (Jan 27 - 29) Game 4: Haley2 vs Haley3

Wout played a Haley3 grenadier list, Stryker2 Theme combination, which made my choice pretty easy. I cannot play Nemo3 into his Stryker2 list, as his full list would be immune against nearly all of damage so I picked Haley2 and expected to see Haley3 in return.

My expectation was met and I was playing against the following list

Haley 3 - Bunker

- Haley Past

- Haley Future
- Squire

- Ironclad

- Thorn 

- Defender 

Storm Lances (max) 

Trencher Infantry (max) 

Arlan Strangeways

Journeyman Warcaster 

- Charger 

I lost the roll and was given choice of sides. We were playing Recon, and there were a conveniently placed wall on one side between the objective and one flag. On top of that, opposing the wall was a large forest reaching just into the zone and making access to this flag difficult. 

The other flank had two inconveniently placed shallow waters for each side, so there had to be a wide flanking maneuver or a denial of that side. This was actually the same table as my previous game.

As it was clear that I will have to deal with LOS denial anyways and wont be able to hide the Stormwall from the unleashed POW13 shooting his list can output, I opted for the side with the wall, intending to fake a scenario move on the right flank (wall/forest). 

Deployment:

He sat up quite centrally in order to move his models were needed.

I deployed Haley2, Laddermore, small Lances and Thorn to the right flank, the Stormwall would just have been able to pass my objective on the left and my big Lances left of said Stormwall. My plan was to force his army through/around the forest and then run my army to the opposite side of the field, keeping him at a distance with my min Lances. Meanwhile the max Lances were supposed to flank hard the left side so it would get difficult for him to have a perfect LOS denial with his cloudwall.

Evil Cygnar top of 1

His first turn saw him commiting hard to my right flank. His Lances, Thorn and the Defender ran around the forest. His Trenchers went through the forest, creating a LOS denying cloudwall combined with the forest to hide the Haley3s, Ironclad and Charger which were oriented to the zone.

Cygnar bottom of 1

I continued with my plan, my max Lances flanked hard left with AS on them so Haley3 would have less impact. The Stormwall ran into position to block LOS together with my objective, but not B2B with it so it could access the zone easily next turn.

Then I brainfarted with Haley2, casted telekinesis on myself and walked 6”, because that was clearly better than running 12” and camping 8 behind the Stormwall. 

As I did not even reach any LOS safety behind my objective, I tried to block LOS with my Firefly and one Lance of the Min unit while making Forcehammer slam angles bad. However it was badly done as the the Firefly could be forcehammered onto Haley2 knocking her down and opening a LOS to the Charger in range. (I only wanted to offer the Lance for forcehammer as then the LOS for the Charger would still have been blocked by the Firefly, he could barely reached Haley2). 

The rest of my models were positioned around the wall on that side to threaten any advances and slow his army as best as possible.

Evil Cygnar top of 2

Wout saw the assasionation potential and we agreed that he could slam the Firefly onto Haley2 from a specific evilThorn position inside of the forest. We also checked that he could get only charger onto her as the Defender was slightly out. 

He calculated it shortly, telling me that there is about a 50% assassination on the table. Against Haley2 with 6 focus, he had 2 fully boosted charger shots one baby Haley3 forcehammer collateral (4 dice for raw talent and medium base) and a Haley3 forcehammer (he wanted to boost it so 3 dice).

He went for the assassination, feated and slammed my Firefly over Haley2 damaging her quite heavily. He then proceed to cast a second forcehammer onto Haley2, which was out of range, as the Firefly had been just in range before. (I am quite sure that Thorn would not have had 3-4” remaining movement to cover these 1.5-2” inside the forest).

I pointed out that he could just slam the Lance over Haley2 instead and gave him the takeback to do so. Due to a low slam distance of 2” Haley2 was not only damaged but even placed closer to his lines based on the rules of least disturbance. This brought even the defender into range to shoot her. 

After the smoke lifted and Charger and Defender had unloaded onto Haley2, she was left with a focus and 1 HP on the table. Lucky me! 

There were some real abyssimal dice involved, but I was still in the game and could start licking my wounds. My Squire had died to the collateral of the Firefly. 

His remaining forces positioned up to shield evilThorn and tried to cloud the evilIronclad (it, Future Haley3 and a couple trenchers were in the zone). Future Haley3 had damaged 1/3 of the un-Arcane shielded Stormwall.

Cygnar bottom of 2

My turn saw Haley2 feating, loading the Stormwall up, healing a bit and receiveing arcane shield. She then placed herself nearly B2B and way to close B2B with my objective camping 2. There was no way to get the Ironclad out of the zone anyways. At least she was hiden by the cloud from the fuel cache.

The Stormwall charged the Charger and killed it and a couple Trenchers. It also tried to disrupt the evilIronclad with a pod. Please don’t ask why, it had nobody in melee and was in my feat so could not have attacked anyways. 

Thorn then managed to disrupt it with his spear…. 

Meanwhile my Firefly, min Lances and Laddermore got rid of a couple trenchers and most of his Lances on the right flank. On my left flank 2 Lances assaulted Haley3 succesfully to take her out, but failed. 

The other 3 went for unsuccessful assaults on the objective taking it nearly out.

Evil Cygnar top of 3

Haley3 herself, Arlan, Junior and 2 Trenchers could activate normally, everybody else was in my feat.

Wout was checking if Baby Haley3 could cast a spell when receiving a press forward order while having to forfeit action or movement. It was ruled that he cannot cast before advancing and has to immediately end her activation after advancing. Tus he had no chance of casting chain blast prior and could not recast it with Haley3 this round if the unit received a press forward order.

He needed the 3 inch to get Haley3 into range to remove Arcane shield with repudiate and wanted to blast my objective twice with chain lighning. 

But without the possibility to remove Arcane Shield, the blasts were at dice-11 and he needed to get through 2 focus and 5 HP. 

He then decided to go for the attrition and killed 2 min. Lances 1 max. Lance, while trying to circle around the right flank in order to consolidate his position.

Cygnar bottom of 3

In my round Haley2 ran to the left flag camping 8, I had forgotten to heal her to 9 life, still with AS. Stormwall Lances and Thorn killed the Objective, the remaining Trenchers and disrupted Thorn. 

I scored to 2:0

Evil Cygnar top of 4

He tried another assassination moving Haley3, Past Haley and Future Haley3 up into the zone, trying to cast repudiate on Haley2. He was out of range. Baby Haley3 killed enough Lances to free Future Haley3. She then proceeded to shoot on Haley3 on dice-11 to hit and dice -5 to damage. He missed the first boosted 11, but his second shot hit, he needed a 15 to kill and got a boosted 13.

I scored to 3:0

He then conceded because Haley3 was standing with 1 focus right in front of 3 Lances, Stormwall and Thorn. Here is a final Picture.

There are only Haleys behind the Stormwall

Summary:

All in all I believe I had a sound plan but did so many stupid mistakes, that I was lucky to get away with this game.

Obvious mistakes this game:

- not running Haley2 bottom of 1

- placing her to close to my objective bottom of 2, there was no need to be in the zone

- bot blocking LOS to Haley3 with two Lances bottom of 3

I am quite interested to see how the game would have played out if I would have ran Haley2 to her safe position in my turn 1, so we would have played more of an attrition/scenario game. 

If you are reading this, thanks again for the game Wout. I know it was frustrating to fail with the assasination, especially after I gave you the takeback and the Defender could participate too. This increased the odds for this assassination greatly and thus made my survival very lucky.

BM 2017 (Jan 27 - 29) Game 3: Nemo3 vs Rask

We were playing Outlast and Sven brought Rask and Midas. I picked Nemo3 again, as I believe he is a good drop into Rask and with all his lessers the Midas list looked manageable as well, though I never played against Midas before. 

This time I get what I expect, his list looks like this:

Rask
- Blackhide Wrastler
- Blackhide Wrastler

Dahlia Hallyr
- Skarath

Rorsh
- Brine
- Battle Boar

Wrongeye
- Snapjaw

Lanyssa

Orin

Bog Trog Mist speaker

Swamp gobber chef

He won the roll and started, we were playing outlast. Our table had two! shallow waters on the right flank, both touching the zone there. There was a convenient wall on my side between the zones and a centrally placed trench. The left zone had a touching forest on my side and a wall keeping him out of the zone on his side.

Deployment:

He deployed Rorsh to the left, Rask central with the support, as well as one Wrastler and Wrongeye and Snapjaw. Dahlia und Skarath went to the right with one supporting Wrastler.

I deployed the Storm Striders on each side, the rest central to benefit from the wall there.

Minions top of 1

He ran up out of threat range of anything.

Cygnar bottom of 1

I ran up and get Storm Striders engines into their respective zone. Everything else shuffles up to make the middle as unattractive as possible. Dynamo, the Lancer and Nemo3 took the wall there and I sadly placed the Lances badly so they could not charge over the wall.

Minions top of 2

He ran up to contesting and threatening places using the central trench for Lanyssa and a Wrastler. They were supported by a submerged Snapjaw. Skarath and a Wrastler threatened the right zone. Brine and the Battle Boar contested/threatened the left zone, Feat went up.

Cygnar bottom of 2 

I moved a Lance forward and shot it in the back with the others until Lanyssa died, the Lance then engaged Snapjaw and the Wrastler in the trench. The rest shuffled I was still partially blocked with my Lances behind the wall -.-. 

The Lancer with electrify and a Storm Strider contest the right zone, the other battle engine with arcane shield contests the left zone.
It looked like this.

Gone girl Lanyssa. My Lancer hides next to the right battle engine

 

Minions top of 3

He can get Brine into the left arcane shielded battle engine and can block him with the Battle Boar, but does not kill it (without rage). He kills the Lance in the center and positions up with the Wrastler and Skarath. Skarath killed a Lance with her spray and damaged the Firefly. Snapjaw charged the Lancer but was out of of control so could neither buy nor boost, nevertheless he severely damages him.

Cygnar bottom of 3

I feat and Nemo3 shot on the Wrastler to jump onto Wrongeye, but I have really abysmal dice, not damaging him. The bad dice would come back during this feat turn.

The right Stormstrider and the firefly shot the back Wrastler three times and leaped Dahlia to death severely damaging the Wrastler. The left battleengine shots on Rorsh and kills the battleboar as well as ¾ of Brine. Dynamo shots the central Wrastler (aiming and +2 from the Storm Strider, with a reroll) and misses his second shot (boosted, even the reroll missed). Laddermore and the Lances killed Snapjaw and the central Wrastler.

Minions top of 4

Brine finally killed my left battle engine, which was lucky to have survived so long. Wrongeye killed two Lances and positions himself as a pushblock, the remaining Wrastler then charges the right battle engine and kills it. Rorsh and Rask finish the remaining Lances and Firefly and dismount Laddermore. 

He scores 0:1

Cygnar bottom of 4

I killed the remaining Wrastler and Wrongeye (he was not submerged because he needed the attacks for the Lances) with Junior, Nemo and Finch. Dynamo shot Rorsh and killed Brine via transfers. Somebody killed the Mist speaker, Orin and the gobber Chef. Dismounted Laddermore ran in the left zone to contest.

I scored to 1:1 

Minions top of 5

He had Rorsh and Rask left and tried to kill Laddermore, but she survived! I scored 2:1.

Cygnar bottom of 5

Laddermore fluffed her attacks on Rorsh, but Dynamo finally killed that tough pig, Nemo3 ran in the right zone and I score to 5:0

 

Summary:

Sven and me played before and had again a very enjoyable game. Last time we played Rask Haley2 and I believe this game was a lot tighter than the Haley2 game, so maybe I have to reconsider my Nemo3 approach for this matchup. 

However, repulsor field is a huge problem for his list, as he has the damage, but not the models to easily stop the push back. The split scenario greatly favored me and I am happy with the way I played the game.