Monday, August 19, 2013

Nerdycon 2013 - Who's the Boss?

This past weekend, NZ held its (to the best of my knowledge) first "Who's the Boss?" tournament in Auckland.

Who's the Boss is a casual tournament format where you come prepared with a single faction list +5 WJ/WB points, and your caster is randomly allocated to you before each tournament round via use of a giant spinning wheel of fortune featuring the name of every caster in the game + some bonus surprises, such as:
  • Free spin (like a reroll for the wheel, in case you get a bad caster first time)
  • Bankrupt (lesser warlock)
  • Jackpot (choose ANY caster you want outside your faction)
  • Dealer's Choice (TO gets to screw you over by picking your caster)
  • Free spoon (literally, a free spoon to take home)

My list was basically a standard Barnabas 35pt list, with the substitution of a Swamp Horror for a Spitter (I thought giving reach would be sweet) and a Feralgeist/Swamp Gobber team instead of the usual Totem Hunter or Croctor:

MYSTERY CASTER +5
Wrastler
Horror
Snapper
2x Full Posse
Feralgeist
Swamp Gobber

The Horror was good on the grounds that it had a crapload of initials and never seemed to take any damage since it was usually hanging around infantry, the animus didn't really come into play as much as I thought it would. The Feralgeist was a very useful scenario piece as usual, and I even remembered to take over a dead warbeast once!

A crapload of casters


Game 1: Wrong Eye vs Ret (Shae) - Close Quarters

CASTER (*5pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Houseguard Halberdiers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (7pts)
* Houseguard Halberdiers Officer & Standard (2pts)
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt (4pts)
Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Mage Hunter Commander (2pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)


I was unlucky enough to be the first of two people to roll Bankrupt! on the wheel during the day, resulting in being given either the Journeyman, Dahlia + Skyryth, Rorsch + Brine or WE + Snapjaw (Brun+Lug were unavailable). Fortunately for me, the dice decided on Wrong Eye, which I had in my case fully painted and know how to play very well.

My opponent was Luke, who is a pretty experienced player and general all-around classy guy but was just starting Ret so wasn't 100% familiar with his stuff, so getting a totally new caster on top of that helped even things up with my lesser warlock.... although Shae with Ret is patently unfair. Shae with almost any melee infantry is patently unfair.

My first turn I put Submerge on WE, Spiny Growth on a Wrastler and charged up behind a wall. The rest of my stuff ran up (Snapjaw submerged)..... and I ran the Wrastler barely outside my 8" control area. Super sweet start. On Shae's turn, he put Storm Rager on a Mage Hunter Assassin, feated and I got charged by said Storm Ragered MHA from 17" away. He passed the Terror check due to the surrounding Dirge Gators, and hit Wrong Eye (needing a 5, since I am DEF 12 + wall bonus), and by the grace of Kossk at dice -6 rolled a 1,1,2,5... leaving Wrong Eye on 2 boxes. Yowzer.

The Wrastler with 1 fury outside my control frenzied, killed a Gatorman... then the Posse proceeded to eat all the Ret infantry while Wrong Eye sat behind his wall with Submerge and 2 transfers. The beasts understandably didn't do much, although the Horror did some heavy lifting with its many initial attacks, tying up a clump of MHSF.

I managed to live long enough to see the end of the game through WE's healing (Life Drinker on his Bite + Bond with Snapjaw) and some transfers. He healed up to 5, then went back down to 1 thanks to some Halberdier charges. Eventually Luke deathclocked himself (same thing happened last game we played) and I won a game with a lesser as my warlock.

Game 2: Lich3 vs Ret (eMagnus) - Outflank


CASTER (*5pts)
* Hyperion (18pts)
Dawnguard Sentinels (Leader and 9 Grunts) (9pts)
* Banshee (10pts)
* Dawnguard Sentinel Officer & Standard (2pts)
Arcanist (1pts)


This game was against a newer player I hadn't met before named Lance, who had a really nicely painted Hyperion, crisp white and everything. It looked amazing as a centerpiece.
This game was a significant step up in caster power and got Lich3, who is pretty damn strong in Gators with the fury mechanic. He has one of the best rounded buff lists in the game, is very survivable, and comes with a free arc node/soul collector. Probably one of the best casters I could have received.

He deployed Hyperion on my right flank, and the rest of the list to the left. The Banshee was being marshalled by the Sentinels, which I don't think I have ever seen, but as far as jack marshalls go Pronto is a pretty good drive so the Banshee can Pronto up, aim and boost damage (or boost both with Arcanist focus).

I used a Swamp Horror and 1 unit of Gators with Scything Touch to deal with the Hyperion, the Wrastler in the middle to go either side, and the rest of my list (featuring Ashen Veiled Posse) to deal with the Sentinels and dominate the left zone.

I don't remember the game in too much detail, but he feated turn 2 which allowed him to grab a control point in the Hyperion zone after shooting 3 Gators to death, and getting a few melee swings on my Wrastler with the Banshee. eMagnus' feat turn is pretty bad when you have no guns at all and your arc node is held back. Next turn I managed to almost scrap a Hyperion by charging it with a the two remaining Gators and a Scything Touch Swamp Horror under Mobility, and the Wrastler wrecked the Banshee thanks to some beasty damage rolls. Lich3 also Bone Shakered some Sentinels that were blocking my Gator charges, leading to a lot of dead elves.

Next round the Swamp Horror died on Hyperion's last attack and was then taken over by a Feralgeist who managed to finish the Colossal, and Lich3 finished off the rest of the Sentinels, sitting in the zone with 4 fury + his feat (aka. utterly unkillable) and a Wrastler ran 14" up into Magnus' face. 5CPs to me, and I lost about 5 Gators in the process. Not really a fair matchup, but probably fairer than Rask vs Retribution in general.

Game 3: pGoreshade vs Circle (pHaley) - Incursion


CASTER (*5pts)
* Gorax (4pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
* Warpwolf Stalker (10pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
* Stone keeper (1pts)
Shifting Stones (2pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Tharn Bloodtrackers (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Nuala the Huntress (2pts)


This game was against Big Luke (who is physically smaller than other Luke but is a big shot tournament player so it increases his stature), who managed to get pHaley with Circle. That means TB + army at full efficiency. Fortunately for me, I had Mage Blight to force him back to the edge of the Kill Box and a Deathstalker to buff my armor even more against those Stalkers.

I actually really quite liked pGoreshade in Gators. The Deathstalker made quite a difference throughout the game, giving Goreshade an additional pseudotransfer and debuffing Stalkers. Shadowmancer is also a really cool spell for pillow-fisted Gator beasts, and giving your caster stealth never hurts. Here's hoping for that spell on epic Calaban, the Unsuckened. Mage Blight made a pretty big difference in this game, but to be fair to Cryx, I do not understand how this thing can cost 5 and Purification cost 3.

The play in this game was pretty bad overall, but far worse on my part. I made a few colossal mistakes that should have lost me the game, such as forgetting that Wrastlers can't charge over linear obstacles, and forgetting to pop Goreshade's feat. How the hell do you forget to bring in 6 Banes for nothing? Nobody knows.

Anyway, the flag to my left disappeared and we had my Feralgeist and his Gobbers hang out at the right flag the whole game, making scenario a non-issue. Basically, Haley cast TB every turn so was 100% safe from Gators who spent their time slowly chewing through squishy infantry, and he got 2 legit assassination attempts on Goreshade, which all failed:
  1. Early teleportation of a non-Primaled stalker on a clump of Gators, killing three of the four within melee range (thanks Deathstalker!). I spent my whole turn figuring out how to get my Wrastler to kill this Stalker since the area was very cluttered with models and a wall. I failed to execute anything in a sensical order and did basically nothing that turn, even forgetting to put Spiny Growth on Goreshade which would have made a huge difference.
  2. Same Stalker, now Primaled, managed to chew through all of Goreshade's transfers but 1, and kill the Deathstalker.
  3. Last ditch attempt with Haley charging a Gator to get within 5" of Stealth Goreshade, who was now on 1 box with 1 transfer, and missed the second Arcane Bolt which would have certainly killed him. Next turn the Wrastler deathrolls Haley and a Posse member kills her.
Sad, sad example of a Warmachine game, but sometimes you luck out.

Game 4: Makeda3 vs Ret (pKreoss) - Process of Elimination









CASTER (*5pts)
* Banshee (10pts)
* Phoenix (10pts)   (super sweet Phoenix wielding his sword with both hands - looks way better than the usual pose)
* Sylys Wyshnalyrr, the Seeker (2pts)
Mage Hunter Strikeforce (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Mage Hunter Commander (2pts)
Arcanist (1pts)
Eiryss, Angel of Retribution (3pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)
Mage Hunter Assassin (2pts)


This final game was against Chris Baker, who in the past has had a bad rep for being a douche in game, but to be honest the last two games I have played against him since he started shaving his head have been clean, fun games with zero drama. I even gave him my best sports vote, because someone has to, and it was probably my most balanced and enjoyable game of the day.

Pregame, I rolled Lich1, who wasn't available for whatever reason, so I eventually ended up getting pKreoss, which is nothing to complain about. On his end, Chris managed to roll the wheel about 400 times, getting a bunch of respins, a Double Cross, eventually landing on Makeda3. He decided to use his double cross because pKreoss with fury, Purification and Lamentation against Makeda3 in Ret would really suck. I think this probably worked out in my favour either way since without a damage buff I would have a hard time killing a DEF 15/ARM 19 Makeda camping on a few focus along with a pair of heavy jacks, meaning I would have to grind it out on scenario by throwing things to die at Makeda's feet to keep her in place.

Makeda3 is an interesting caster in the same way that she is incredibly boring. She does absolutely nothing for her army outside her feat (which in this case was nothing since I don't have Molik or Bronzebacks) and making Skorne troops fearless (the only Skorne troops you see are Fearless anyway), and is not really a competitive caster in the current format because she MUST get up close in melee to have any impact on the game - either that, or sit back with Sunhammer and do about 1/8th of what she is capable of. While I do like casters that can get their hands dirty, my favourite casters are the ones that actively power their army through synergies and buffs while also being able to do work and not die to a strong breeze ie. Barnabas, Butcher2 or Gaspys123. Makeda3 does little but charge in, blow stuff up, face-tank and hope her insane defensive stats keep her up.

Anyway, there was a large hill in the middle of the table and a bunch of other terrain on the sides that made no difference at all the entire game. I ran some stuff up, he feated early to knock down all my Gators, denying them the +2 ARM which I think was probably the best use of the feat given that Makeda with a few transfers is very unlikely to die to MHSF, Spiny Growth or not, and the Gators are very unlikely to die to MHSF at ARM 18. The Strike Force manage to kill about half the Gators on the table with charges, and he jams both his heavies in front of Kreoss to protect him from a potential Rise Gator Missile.

Fortunately for him, the Horror is 4.75" away from the Wrastler so too far to throw him forward. Hence I spend my turn destroying an objective with Makeda, forgetting to activate the statues in her unit, killing a couple of Defender's Warded MSHF with Gators (DEF 16 is balls, but rerolls are legit), and fluffing boosted attack rolls with my beast under Makeda's feat (which basically means "free boosts if you can hit!" in this army). In retaliation, he kills my Wrastler with a Banshee and some monster damage rolls. I then charge said Banshee with Makeda and her Statue Sisters, managed to kill it handily, and kill Eyriss and a few more MHSF with Gatormans. I then do my only pro move of the entire tournament, which is to run a Feralgeist right in front of Makeda such that the Phoenix isn't able to walk up and engage her without taking two free strikes from Gatormans.

He attempts an assassination on Makeda with Kreoss, purifying off Spiny Growth and doing a decent amount of damage, following it up with 2 Mage Hunter Assassins (they could see her as she was on the hill) who fluff their rolls and a Phoenix with some focus, but she lives with a few damage boxes and 1 transfer, which I use to transfer away the continuous fire damage roll from the Phoenix and then kill Kreoss.

Thoughts on the format

So there you go, I went 4-0 during the day and became The Boss, and got this super sweet trophy:

Not a mug, but I'll take it
First, I got a bit lucky in the draw playing against Ret three times since I play against them so often I know what all their stuff does and Gators chew through living infantry like nobody's business. I realize that Gators with Rask or Barnabas usually just steamroll over Ret in general without breaking a sweat, but one has to keep in mind that I didn't have either of those casters available so my Gators were as prone to getting shot as any other infantry and my opponents also had access to casters that are far better than usual Ret casters. So while I did get exceptionally lucky a few times in game and in the caster allocation, I like to think I ultimately won the games I did due to being very familiar with my faction's abilities and general knowledge of the game rather than facerolling over Ret like I can with Rask. Better lucky than good, as I was told.

I don't think Gators are a spectacularly amazing list in Who's the Boss - I mean, it's not like I couldn't run pretty much the exact same list in Skorne and Legion with far better beasts in a standard format. Ashen Veil and Scything Touch (or Fury) are both friendly buffs, not Faction specific. The only "non-standard" thing really was getting battlegroup buffs like Shadowmancer, Makeda3's feat and Mobility on Gator beasts, which isn't that much scarier than getting those on good heavies .
To me, the strength of Blindwater is their really survivable casters who allow Gatorman Posse to reliably get across the table and do their thing while controlling your opponent's response. Without that, it's basically just a Faction X force with mediocre beasts and a lot of Minions.

Second, the format was also not as broken as I had expected. Other than getting lesser warlocks or a Jr as your caster, I didn't experience any huge power spikes that felt different to a usual game of Warmachine. The strongest caster I played by far was Lich3, but basically any time I have played with or against Cryx, it seems like that level of power if you choose the correct list. Lich3 with a Deathjack, some Banes and some Black Ogrun would have been just as potent I think. The format is understandably too random and with a lot of potential for unmitigatable skew in matchups to be taken seriously as a competitive format but nevertheless, on the whole it still seemed less broken than Mk1 :P

Third, playing Hordes in this format is also clearly far, far better than playing Warmachine. If you get a WM caster with your Hordes list, you are basically doubling up on resources and getting OP spells and feats with little downside. Whereas spells like Mage Blight or Temporal Barrier take up a massive portion of your resources in WM, leaving your warjacks to flap their dicks in the wind for most of the turn, they are relative freebies in Hordes. If you have a Warmachine list and get a Hordes caster, chances are you're probably not going to get anything amazing.... like getting Arkadius in your 1-warjack list.

Fourth, I finally discovered a benefit to Minions being deemed a "complete faction" - playing Gators negated me from getting crappy Pig casters (besides Carver, of course). Woot! It didn't save me from lessers since basically all of them are Minion/Mercs though.

Finally, Who's the Boss? is and was a lot of fun. Although I am a pretty average player, I really like thinking about systems and how things interact and how changing one part of the system completely changes the whole. Warmachine is a really good game for that, and Who's the Boss? gives you a whole new mental dimension on the game. Having everyone anxiously staring at the wheel seeing what caster you're going to get each round, and sharing in your pain when you get a lesser warlock provides a really chilled out fun atmosphere to a tournament.

Thanks to Damian Caulfield for running a really nice casual event and for putting together an awesome caster wheel! Looking forward to the next one :)



6 comments:

  1. Most upbeat post in a while, even you and Chris Baker are buds now - imagine the look on 2012-JS's face if you'd have told him that..

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    1. I dunno about buddies, but life goes on.

      Plus I have heaps of happy posts on here! Anytime I rage on Calaban, an angel gets its wings.

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. Congrats on winning, I guess this means people have to take Gators more seriously now!

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  4. At Adepticon, I played in Who's the Boss and one of my opponents got Carver with Skorne. I was playing gatormans with Shae. My opponent kept apologizing for his SPD 6 heavies that were an effective ARM 24 against my Swamp Horror.

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    1. Carver with practically anything is game-breaking, probably why Pigs can't have nice beasts. Poor piggehs.

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