Yes the rumours are true, I'm back

Wednesday I got a message that international super star Charles Soong was in Sweden and wanted to hang out for a couple of beers. One thing turns to the next and I'm signed up for a local tournament on Saturday. 2 lists, 75 points just like always.

I opened my draw of unopened blisters and made two lists. The idea was to have Thagrosh1 as my brick beater and Lylyth1 as my caster killer. The shredder in Thagrosh1's list was meant to be an Ogrun Bokur but I forgot that model so I made due.

The Friday we went up to Morgans place and had a fancy 3 course dinner. A button mushroom soup with home made buns and a monk cheddar. Followed by a main course of stuffed roulades with potatoes and pan sauce. A great white chocolate and vanilla panna cotta finished the meal before we played some board games.

Holm being his old charming self, enjoy it internet, drink in the love.

Game 1

First game I'm up against a troll player with 2 bricky lists so I drop Thagrosh1. He wins the starting roll and I pick the side without a forest in the middle because I think it will make him split up his forces.

So going second on spread the net is one of those this game is over if I can press hard enough type of scenarios. So I deploy to do just that. The plan is to let my colossal camp my zone and the Warmonger Warchief camp my flag while I contest his stuff with warmongers. I pick his eathbornes as my prey targets since they are the pieces he needs to contest stuff with.

He moves up a bit carefully and I then spread my models out as much as possible. Blightbringer stays out of the Earthbornes threat and scatters an AoE around to try and kill a whelp or something but it doesn't do anything.

It takes him a lot of activatons to kill the jamming tentacles and his shooting kill one Warspear in each unit and that's about it for his turn.

So my list does what it does best and shove warspears down his throat as Thagrosh1 hides behind the house. My opponent didn't contest his flag well enough and I go up to 3-0

My opponent clear some warspears but can't contest so I go up to 5-0. Yay for spread the net so fun and interactive scenario that one <.<

Game 2

Game two I'm up against a ret player with Rahn so I don't feel safe playing Thagrosh1. Arm and camp doesn't matter a lot when Rhan starts pulling you out.

He runs up normally so I can't really move out of my deployment area but the colossal is within 23" of Lylyth1 so I can put up parasite on it my turn 1. Then the rest of my army just takes pot shots and successfully kill a couple of mages as in two of them.

I made two small mistakes in my positioning so in his turn he tramples up the colossal and shoots the raptor and pull it forward and then Rahn feats and he slams the raptor over my Gobbos. Then to add insult to injury he kills a Deathstalker and a Raptor with a chain lightning which punishes me for placing a Deathstalker close to a raptor. Then his list open up on the hell mouth and with some spikes he removes that off the table as well and it's looking really bad for me.

So I have an unchargeable colossal in my face and even if my whole army works together I can't kill it but with some overtake action I can get an angelius into it and maybe half it for the next round. So Lylyth1 shoots the small arcnode and then two raptors charge it and with some spikes I kill it instead of leaving it on a couple of boxes. So my whole plan falls together and I just do about 20 boxes to the colossal with my guns as Annyssa and the right raptors avenge the hellmouth.

So his Phonix walks up and kills the objective then Disco tries to clear a raptor and Annyssa with her spray to score two points and put pressure on me but the dice doesn't really work out his way and I'm left in a great spot.

Once again there's a chance to charge and over take into the colossal but for some reason Battlemages have set defence. so I have to boost my charge attack. Then the angle does way to little damage and I'm not going to kill the colossal this turn either. So I decide to go for the caster kill.

Lylyth1 walks up feats and kills a battle mage in the way. Then my raptors walk up and kill the rest of the battle mages so Annyssa can switch prey to Rahn. Then Anyssa walks up and puts Rahn in the dirt with two spikes. Leaving my NBT, angelus, right raptor and deathstalker with nothing to shoot at.

 Game 3

I get a circle player with Bradigus and Krueger2. Lylyth1 into Bradigus seems like a terrible matchup and Thag's 1 into Krueger2 seems pretty playable.

He wins the roll and decides to go first. I pick the side where the house would be in the middle of his army and force him to split up.

 He runs up aggressively and uses the Wardens animus to keep me from pulling in a Wyrd on that side.

But my opponent isn't aggressive enough with Krueger2 so I can shoot a wyrd with my Blightbringer combined with an Obliteration through a Spellmartyr I get rid of a really troubling model bottom of one.

The Fulcrum kills two Ogruns and a lighting storm kills another one on the other side.

With vengence triggered on both units it's time to start pushing warspears down field. So I put up Draconic Blessing on the right unit and then colossal shoots the warden on that side and down he goes to three charges as Thags1 walks into position to camp the flag for the rest of the game. 

In response my opponent feats, kills the warspears and scores two points but he can't contest my flag. 2-2

My right Warspears kill a sentry stone each and then my right unit constes the flag as Blightbringer kills the solo on his flag for a 4-2 lead. 

My opponent goes for the kill on Typhon but hunters mark is out of range and he realizes that way to late leaving him in a bad situation. Krueger2 stands on the flag and the fulcrum cleans up the last Warspears. 5-4

I clear the contesting stone in my zone and Typhon contests his flag. 7-4
 

Megalith finally kills Typhon with the help of some fulcrum shooting. 8-6

Then Blightbringer cleans up Megalith and I feat back Typhon. Tagrosh1 is the proxy base on the hill by the way. 10-8

The fulcrum walks up and tries to get the crit stationary assassination run. Once that last ditch assassination fails I'm finally able to clean the game up and make a push for the scenario. 14-9

Game 4

We're three undefeated people after four rounds and I'm the down pair up against my arc nemesis. Derp Turtles.

I win the roll and decide to go second since walking 4" out of my deployment to not be shot by derp turtles sounds like a bad idea and letting the shoot me sounds worse.

I pick the Derpies as my prey and my opponent just switches flanks with the fast fuckers.

So I run up as far as I can in a quick bunch and put up draconic blessing on the left unit of Warspears.

 He runs a beast behind the rock formation on the right safely contesting that zone and then he pushes up. His left Turtle kills a warspear and tough's another.

With Vengeance triggered I can get 3 Warspears to the Gladiator and Hellmouth can drag in a Sentry for Typhon to kill. So the Blightbringer walk up and shoot the Gladiator with the +2 strength and armor shot. Then Typhon walks up to the dragged in sentry and leaves it on eight boxes left. Then comes my time to fuck up. The first Warspear charges the gladiator and triggers counter charge on the Bronzeback. Killing it and blocking my lane so I can't kill the Gladiator.

One Warspear fluffs on the back of the sentry, then the warmonger fluff on the front. Finally a spell martyr runs into the back and Thag tries to finish the Sentry with an obliteration but does 2 boxes and I'm fucked. 

To add insul to injury I forget to contest his zone so it's 1-1.

In his turn he cleans up the left flank and in return I put up draconic blessing on the Blightbriner so he can kill a Turtle and feat back typhon on the right to try and push that zone.

The sentry gets rush and walks around to deal some damage to the Blightbringer while his caster runs out to left zone and starts scoring. Turtle kills the objective and stares down Tagrosh1. 4-1

So I need to make something happen on the scenario front. So Tagrosh mans up and charges the Turtle and leaves it on like 5 boxes.Then a forsaken tries to finish it but that doesn't work so I'm forced to walk Typhon back and spray the last boxes on the turtle but then I don't score my right zone and it's 5-2.

My opponent clear his zone and contests mine and wins 7-2

Finish thoughts

I ended up third and I'm happy with my lists. They're not optimal but worked well enough to give me a shot at a tournament win.

Traning weekend in Oslo

 Jocke, Jeppa and I went on a training weekend with the Norwegians. A weekend best summarized in the picture below. Jeppa doing something, a Norwegian watching in disgust. Jocke laughing manically and Me documenting the event for the future.

I felt the need to test my Vayl2 against good cryx players so that is the practice I really wanted. I got thrown down against Sverre our beautiful host for the weekend. He brought a Coven and Goreshade2 pair. Both in the new bane theme.

I can't drop Abby2 into that. So yeah. Dropping Vayl2 and going for the throat.

I'm scared of Coven's ability to chanel spells so turn 1 I pop out a harrier, it runs into position and I throw a deadly storm at it. Doing moderate damage and killing one bane as well.

In his turn he runs up and feat. Bad times ahead. I have made a mistake as well. I ran up Bayal front and centre letting him kill that one without any trouble.

Vengeance on bane cav is disgusting during Covens feat turn. So I do nothing. Just pull back with everything.

In hus turn he scores 4 points and it's time for desperation assassination run. If I don't fuck it up I would get him. Standing in the kill box against Vayl2 is a dumb idea. But I don't declare my free snipe so my first shot miss and then I miss two more shots and the assassination run does not happen.

In his turn he runs me over for a 6-0 scenario win.

So if I'm up against a cryx player that knows what I'm doing and kill boxes himself, then Vayl2 is not very strong into bane theme.

Next game. I'm up against Legion.

I think legion right now have triangle of power casters. Lylyth3 is good against Abby2, while bad against Fyanna2. So you get some "fun" list decisions.

I don't bring Lylyth3 though since I'm more comfortable with Vayl2. Meaning I have a bad time in the mirror.

It's one of the matchups I have wanted to test for a while. Abby2 vs Lylyth3. 

Who goes first is really important in this matchup. I win the roll and goes second.

He runs up outside of my walk and shoot threat.

I go hard right. Keeping outside of 13" from his carnivean and 16" away from the furthest Angel. I set up the Naga to contest his zone next turn.

He goes for the Naga. Lylyth3 and two angels hand cannons should kill it but he fudges up the activation order and one of the angels can not boost. Meaning it misses and the naga lives on a couple of boxes.

There are two important things now. I need to kill the Sorceress and Helion (hiding behind the rock on the right hand side in my circle) and the carnivean standing in the zone. Both are really dicey plays. If one works thats good if both works I'm on my way to winning this game.

Seraph goes up rolls one shot and does a bit of damage to the carnivean. Then three ravagores walk up and roll terribly on damage. Leaving him on about 10 boxes. Meaning carnivean has to roll crazy damage to finish him. So he goes for the Sorceress on Hellion instead. Rolling terribly there as well so I fail on both my goals for the turn.

In his turn he pulls back. Kills the naga and starts turteling  in his zone.

I scather some scathers around and contest his zone. The sorc eats the dust and we go to 2-1.
  

Now he's got the gun advantage so he starts using it and I pull back. Letting my carnivean with spiny and Bracer eat the shots.

He alphas me hard. Killing one ravagore and carnivean.

I answer killing everything around me but I leave Abby2 on only two transfers and then it's go time.

 Then it's time for the CoC. My opponent had Iron Mother and Lucant. I'm dropping Abby2 in both of them.

Once again a matchup where going first is important. So I go second to really feel the pain.

He runs up and I shoot a bit on some dudes. Abby2 walks 7 then repositions another 5 straight up. She's the threat that has to be projected in this matchup.

My opponent has two choices here now. Either he backs of or he feats and runs in. He picks the latter and I back off. Using one forsaken to contest both zones on the left and a shepherd to contest the left.

My opponent pulls back and kills the things in the zone. Going to 3-0

I push forward and contest with a ravagore in the right zone while a shredder holds out left and centre.

My opponent goes for a play here. Lucant has a bolt. I had not thought about that amount of damage. So the ravagore on the right could have died. I really should have put both my ravagores in the zone. That was just sloppy of me. He fails though and here we go.

I feat kill tep and one jack. pushing back into the zones scoring 5-2

My opponent goes in but well Abby2 can do work and stay safe. Lucant can't. 

With that I had gotten a game against everything I wanted to play against. So I pulled up and chair and watcher the most beautiful man in warmachine do his thing.

Look at that face. Come on look at it. That's how happy you are when your opponent puts up the seraph in front of all the gun bunnies.

The game ends with Abby2 bolting Ossrum to death. Since Legion OP and Jocke throws an unlosable game.

The next day I get another game against Sverre. He drops Goreshade2 this time.

Turn 2 I have a 50/50 assassination run. Goreshade2 is on 3 camp and I can get Vayl2 and the Seraphs shooting into him. I really should have gone for it. I didn't since I thought I somehow could grind it out but no I can't. I should just stop trying and kill people when they give me 50/50:s. Cause my dice OP :D

After that game we go home. It's a long drive to Oslo for only 4 games but that's the way it is. I was a bit burnt out after the torture of bad music in the car.

It's funny how fast I can go from feeling confident to totally crushed. The new Cryx toys are really strong and you should all be prepared for the rise of Mk2 Cryx again. Ghost fleet is strong don't get me wrong but they lacked a good theme to work with it. Coven in bane theme is just that, a good partner.