The faded black T-shirt 02

Been to the tournament in Koblenz yesterday. Went... well, the end result turned out way better than I had anticipated. I met some players from last week, which was fun, and my opponents were mostly great to play against. In total, ten people attended (out of an in-tended 16), a lot of them being more or less new to the game.
And to prevent myself from forgetting to mention it later on: My dice were well-behaved. All losses I incurred were due to misplays on my part, which is quite a relief.

Here's my rundown:

Round 1, The Gauntlet, Zerkova v. Mortenebra
I play "DaRox", whom I played first round last week as well (when I deathclocked myself). Seeing this as a rematch under unclocked conditions, I was eager to take up the challenge. I chose Zerkova because I was unsure whether Harkevich had the potential to deal with it, because his other list was Terminus. The only thing I forgot about was jump start, with takes away some deterrents Zerkova uses to stay safe. I played her very aggressively (probably too aggressive for the tier), but due to my deployment, figure I was too far back to really use my feat.

And dang, I loathe those bloody Scrap thralls. My widowmakers like them a lot, but I in general don't manage to take out enough before they reach me. Got to work on that. On turn three, when Zerkova charges the Deathjack, I had the only case of bad rolls, where a fully charged Spriggan and a comboslamming Marauder can't take out the Deathjack, which requires me to draw Gorman over for a black oil bomb, which leaves the Seether not taken care of. A point of Focus uselessly assigned to the Marauder, leaving me one short for casting Watcher, and forgetting to feat, means I'm eating Seether fists.


Round 2, Incursion, Zerkova v. Kaya the Wildborne
I got to play against the participant with the best NTR-ranking among all attendants, and I think this was my best game. He's a very relaxed and practiced player, and he took pKaya to a tournament, which somehow was a good match to me playing Zerkova (who's also not really seen at tournaments). He had three heavy beast (including a proxied Gethorix), Stones, and the Woldshrimp unit (and a tree), and I tried to recall all I know about fighting Hordes with WM, so I let the Kayazy go first to protect my jacks. I once again play Zerkova highly aggressively, and this time, it did work. She starts out at the front line (12" in), I run the Kayazy up, charge one, feat. The feat catches all beasts but th Argus, two of the stones, and one or two shrimps. Reacting to the, he plays for positions, leaving me an opening at the flags to probably score two Control points in one go. My theory is: If I can score two points, then I will only need one more point, which I can take from the flag to my right (where only his shrimps are), given that the Widowmakers and Spriggan can clear the area.

I guess I got to giddy. I really not to work on my adrenaline rushes... I screw up my activation. The surviving Eliminator should've gone first to engage the Gnarlhorn, but didn't. So he got to counterslam the Kayazy meant to score at and clog the middle flag, and ended up too close for me to score. Shooooooot. In addition, I had placed Zerkova a little too far up, so that the Shadowhorn (whose Spirit I missed taking out by Watcher with one box) could find a niche from which to pound her. Even though, probably my favourite game from the event.


Round 3, Destruction, Harkevich v. Haley Xp
At this point I was thinking "Well, NOW I should be meeting players my skill is good enough for...". It was Destruction and I had to take Harkevich. Thank God I practiced that scenario. When seeing my opponent's list, I was worried - the combination of Haley and Longgunners (max) does that to you. When I realized it was "Major", not "Captain" Haley, I was like "Haley & Longgunners - WTF?". My worries were mostly gone - I knew how Haley worked, and seeing that my best assets were range-based, I wasn't to worried about her feat. My Greylords and IFP took the left flank, the battlegroup went centre-rightish.

After two rounds of being too aggressive, I ran into somebody too aggressive. He took first turn, and drew the Hunter, the B13 and the Lancer over towards his first target. He used temporal Acceleration to give his hunter two shots per round which he could boost for damage, brutal shot from the B13 and, through Domination, my Juggernaut's ice axe (!) to reduce the objective to 1 HP on round 2. I had the Spriggan engage the lancer (who sadly missed two lance attacks - that would've scrapped the lancer), the Pikemen, after enduring a round of shooting, did a move-minifeat-engage to take the longgunners on, when Haley's feat came. Too bad for him that Harkevich was not in it. He moves up, takes his handcannon, and fires at the upfront haley, boosting damage for 9 points. Black Ivan, in what was his first direct hit with the Bombard (despite the affinity), then takes her out.


So, in the End, the Circle player "Kromac" takes first place, the follow-ups are other people from the area, but places four through six go to Kurion (who provided our ride), Arides and Me, as well as the Best Faction awards for Cygnar (respect) and Khador (due to no competition). A solid showing, and I got to be where I wanted to be, sixth of ten. My new goal is set to once again winning two games out of three...