March Madness!

I went to my first organized event this past weekend at Borderlands in Greenville, SC.  I spent most of March building a list and panting a 50 pt army for it, only to not use that list in the end.  It was great fun and I have nothing but good things to say about the locale, the event, and the players. 

The Locale

A few words about Borderlands.  This is one of the best stores for tabletop games and comics that I've been to.  Half of their retail space was devoted to miniature games, the other half was comics.  They had more Warmachine/Hordes stock than I've seen in one place.  I'm really jealous of the guys that can call this their FLGS.  The Warmachine community seems very active in the area.

The Event

The event was a four-round escalation.  We played games at 15, 25, 35, and 50 points.  The first two were caster kill (second was Kill Box, specifically).  The third was a modified Close Quarters, and the last was Overrun.  The scoring confused me, but more on that later.

From March Madness!

The Army

I originally planned to take a T4 eKaya list, and set out to paint the guys for it.  When time got short, I realized I would not have time to paint a new warlock and her pet.  So, a few days prior to the tournament, I made up a new list that included Grayle, the newest Circle Caster.  It was tough making a list that was good at each point level.  I especially struggled at 15 pts.  Most of the folks had a lot more bodies on the table at 15 points than I did.  I'm going to talk about my experiences with this army in a separate post.

The Games

I played four games total.  The funny/helpful thing is that the factions I played are the ones I have the most experience with.  My games were against Protectorate, Cygnar, and Legion.  Two of my friends play Protectorate and Legion, while I also play Cygnar.

My first 15 pt game was against Protectorate.  My opponent brought Severius, a lot infantry, the choir, and two 6 pt Crusaders.  At this level, I only had 7 models on the table, and 3 of those were a unit of shifting stones.  My opponent had over twice that many.  I chased his caster around the board with Morraig while I hid the rest of my guys in a forest.  He managed to kill several of my models before I ever got close to his caster.  He won the game based on how many of my dudes he killed.

From March Madness!

My second game, for 25 pts, and was against pStryker, the battle box caster from Cygnar.  I think the armies were evenly matched.  There were no forests to provide advantage on my side but there was some rough terrain.  I misunderstood the scenario (Killbox) and had my caster out of the box at the beginning of my third turn.  That's instant death and a loss for me.  I don't have pictures of this one.


After my showing in the first two rounds, I ended up at the buy table playing my third game against one of the tournament organizers.  He brought his Legion army with Thagrosh.  I actually had more bodes on the table than he did for this game.  My Wolves were destroyed early by a spray from Thagrosh, but the Skinwalkers tied up an expensive unit of cavalry.  Ultimately, Thagrosh moved up to contest his zone and Grayle got an assassination off.  It was my best game.

From March Madness!

My fourth and last game was against Stryker again.  The objective was to control a narrow corridor down the center of the board.  We were pretty evenly matched.  My opponent had a lot of shooty stuff, but I had some cover in the form of smoke and more smoke.  A single 4 pt unit, The Black 13th, were a match for my 9 points of druids on the right.  His cavalry were the first to engage and they killed my infantry pretty quickly.  After that, Grayle and the Stalker counter-attacked and cleared the control zone of enough of his guys for me to control it uncontested.  After this no more control points were scored for either side, so I won by scenario, 1-0.  My opponent was a new player, like me, and I think we both really enjoyed our game.

From March Madness!

The Summary

I had a great time at the event.  I learned a lot about the game, about my army, about other players, and it was enlightening to experience a locale with a vibrant warmachine community.  I'm officially hooked on tournaments and can't wait for the next one.

From March Madness!