Guildmachine Warball

Last weekend saw a delegation of my WTC team going to a relatively small (new) convention in Germany. The War Room update dropped on Friday, so all the events on Saturday and Sunday were going to be with the new rules and themes; excellent WTC practice.

For now I still wanted to stick to my established pairing of casters. I really like where the Skarre 1 Dark Host is at, so it didn’t change at all, but the Skarre 3 could use some tinkering. While I like having the grind potential of 3 units of Blighted Trollkin, I felt like the one on the far flank was always out of range of Gerlak, Axiara, Deceleration and/or Jussika, so was under-performing.
Aside from that, I didn’t want to miss out on the great Ambush benefit for Blood Witches. The Requisition rules and Kraken discount already gave me an additional 3 points. A minimum unit of Blood Witches + Hag costs me 12 points, which gives me an extra 3 points on top of that. Options for the remaining 6 points were either Severa, or a Misery Cage + Raider Captain. I wasn’t sure about the Captain, but it’s a decent combat solo and I had the points.
The Misery Cage is something I have been missing in the list, but I also wanted to see what Severa would add, so I decided to test both modules this weekend.

The first day we played in the 3-man team tournament. Since this is an event made up of teams with 3 people, we do not use the “WTC style” of pairing of our players, but rather the “German style”.
For those that don’t know it, I will try to summarize it here:
1. teams roll off until there is a winner
2. the winning team picks 1 of the outer tables, the other team gets the one opposite
3. both teams put one of their army lists face-down on their table
4. army lists are revealed and the teams may now pick the matchup for their team member from the remaining lists
5. the final remaining player from each team faces off on the middle table

For reference, I was using these lists for this particular event.
[Theme] Scourge of the Broken Coast
[Skarre 3] Skarre, Admiral of the Black Fleet [+27]
– Kraken [35]
– Satyxis Blood Priestess [4]
Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]
General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]
Ragman [4]
Severa Blacktide [0(6)]
Black Ogrun Ironmongers [6]
Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
– Jussika Bloodtongue [5]
Satyxis Blood Witches (min) [8]
– Satyxis Blood Hag [4]
Scharde Dirge Seers [6]
—
Cryx
[Theme] Dark Host
[Skarre 1] Pirate Queen Skarre [+28]
– Stalker [8]
– Stalker [8]
– Stalker [8]
– Stalker [8]
Bane Lord Tartarus [0(6)]
Darragh Wrathe [9]
Scrap Thrall (3) [2]
Bane Knights (max) [15]
– Bane Knight Officer [0(4)]
Bane Knights (max) [15]
– Bane Knight Officer [0(4)]
Wraith Engine [15]
Wraith Engine [15]

Day 1

Round 1
Skarre 1 vs Haley 2 (/Kraye)
King of the Hill

In the first round of the day, I face off against Haley 2. I’m not relishing dropping Skarre 3 when Haley has the option to just shut down my 2 huge bases for a turn, in addition, there aren’t too many magical weapons available, so I decide to drop Skarre 1.
My opponent wins the roll and elects to go first, not a bad idea on a mid-table scenario against Skarre 1 with Stalkers. I have the Treasure Chest for my objective, that I didn’t need all game and he took the one for Magical that I killed bottom of 2.
The start of the game sees me being not too aggressive with my Wraith Engines, because he can give a Centurion magical weapons to break it down. I do put a Stalker in each of the zones.
My opponent kills some of my Bane Knights, puts a Centurion in the zone with my objective and 4 Sword Knights in the zone with his objective. Thorn hides behind a house and there’s a Centurion and Minuteman in the middle zone. He underestimates the power of my alpha and thinks his Centurions are untouchable, so he doesn’t feat.
The game can be summarized by the Stalker on my left killing the 4 Sword Knights because they were in a line. The Minuteman gets charged by a feated Tartarus that takes his Rapid Strike on the Centurion. A Stalker feels like rolling well and takes out Thorn over the wall (DEF 15). I boosted the first damage after jumping, then he died on the bought attack, just before my Cortex was about to give out. A walking Wraith Engine and jumping Stalker take out the Centurion in my zone. Bane Knights finish off the Minuteman, another Stalker takes out the damaged Centurion on the middle and the other Wraith Engine takes out his objective and cripples the remaining Centurion.
Turns out even I underestimated my alpha, because if I had charge Tartarus B2B with the flag, I would’ve gone to 5-0 then and there, but now I “only” go to 4-0. It doesn’t matter as it’s impossible for my opponent to contest the zone with my objective and he fails to kill the Stalker with the Sword Knights, so I win on his turn.
If Haley had feated on all of my work pieces, this game would’ve gone entirely different, so I’m glad for that slip-up. My opponent was a really great guy and we talked a lot over the weekend. Glad to have met him.

We win this round by virtue of one of my team mates also winning their game.

Round 2
Skarre 3 vs Syvestro (/Locke)
Invasion

My opponent wins the roll and elects to go second, to score first. He then gives me the side that has my objective behind the central obstruction, which is nice.
This game was basically a massive grind, so I will just go over the highlights.
Severa misses a Trancer on a 7, which was kind of risky of me. This pushes her out of the trench and into the open arms of an ambushing Anastasia.
The Kraken surives a Toro after getting rusted by the Vulcan, then gets repaired and clobbers the heavy.
My opponent ambushes the Pressgangers and Hutchuk into my Marauders, who were anticipating this, and kill some, but Ashen Veil makes it so they don’t get too many. I counter ambush and take down a lot of them. The Blood Priestess can take out Hutchuk who was knocked down after Tough, which heals my caster after feating.
Draconic Blessing allows the Marauders to square off with the Railless, eventually taking it down after multiple turns with some help from Skarre’s cannons.
At that point that flank is mine and I can start crawling back on scenario.
The Vulcan eventually dies after having taken out the Kraken and taking a couple of charges from Iron Mongers, then Axiara, Gerlak and some Marauders.
At one point the Vulcan had gotten an angle to charge Skarre that was camping 4. It’s highly unlikely that he’ll be able to kill her without the feat available, but he messed up some positioning and then doesn’t make it after all.
My opponent then clocks, but he had nothing left to contest with anyway, while I was running reinforced Bloodgorgers into the other zone.
This was a great nail-biter of a game. I feel like all I can ever do into CG is grind it out and I’m not sure what I could drop to have a better game.

We again win this round 2-1, so next round is the finals.

Round 3
Skarre 3 vs Syvestro (I can’t remember the exact list) (/Gearheart)
Spread the Net

Again against Syvestro, again going to be a grind, but this particular list actually worries me more.
This game can be summarized very shortly. I can get ahead on scenario by having gone second and parking Severa on a flag, while scoring my zone and contesting his. He hadn’t put a solo on his flag.
However, I’m also an idiot and had put Skarre within charge range of the Vulcan. He feats, cycles Transmutation to the Vulcan, rolls a critical hit on Stygian Abyss by virtue of his feat, blinding her, lands a Withering Humor rocket on a Marauder next to the boat, catching her in the blast, then uses Instability Equation and charges in. At dice +4 (and rolling like 6,6,5,4 on his charge), it doesn’t take him long to kill her, even through my camp.
I had put her there to have a chance at clearing the middle zone, which didn’t even happen because of some poor rolls, and then scoring it, but I had lost sight of that threat. It was stupid and I didn’t need to be there.

Because of my screw-up, we lose the round. I feel bad about this, but we were mainly there to get in games and practice our composition, which we’re doing a good job of, so not all is lost.

Friendly Saturday-night game
Skarre 2 vs Zaal 2
King of the Hill

I really wanted to play another game and end up playing one of my team mates because most other people were playing in some event or other.
He wanted to take Zaal 2 for a test run and I secretly really wanted to play this Skarre 2 list. I knew it was a bad matchup, but who really cares in a friendly game, right?
Not much to say about it except that the expected happened: he feats, I can’t do enough damage. The ambushing Mechanithralls really disappointed and the Hellslinger Phantom dies after killing some statues. I can’t get souls, but Black Spot still helped a bit with the output.
I counter feated, but couldn’t accomplish much regardless. After that we just call the game, because there is not much I can do and it’s getting late.

Day 2

After the first day, I had an epiphany during the night, that I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of before. Instead of taking a Satyxis Raider Captain that is a bit lackluster in this list, the new Scourge rules allow me to take a Warwitch Siren!
The Kraken will never say no to some extra focus, it can deal with a Battle Engine in a pinch and it’s a Stealthy solo to camp on a flag and/or launch a spray from time to time.
Simply walking away a single contesting model and then getting back on the flag with the reposition granted by Axiara also sounds like great fun.

So here’s today’s version of the list, with the Skarre 1 list remaining identical.

[Theme] Scourge of the Broken Coast
[Skarre 3] Skarre, Admiral of the Black Fleet [+27]
– Kraken [35]
– Satyxis Blood Priestess [4]
Axiara Wraithblade [0(6)]
General Gerlak Slaughterborn [0(6)]
Misery Cage [2]
Ragman [4]
Warwitch Siren [4]
Black Ogrun Ironmongers [6]
Blighted Trollkin Marauders (max) [15]
Bloodgorgers (max) [15]
– Jussika Bloodtongue [5]
Satyxis Blood Witches (min) [8]
– Satyxis Blood Hag [4]
Scharde Dirge Seers [0(6)]

Round 1
Skarre 1 vs Mordikaar (Makeda 1)
Invasion

This game was against an illustrious person in the German meta, whom I have met on several occasions in the past, which had always been enjoyable and this time was no different. While I wasn’t too sure about my ability to beat him, I did feel confident about the matchup. There were limited magic weapons available, my Wraith Engines outthreat his Supreme Guardian, I don’t care about his theme benefit and I have Dark Guidance to deal with his feat.
I take the healing objective this time around (it’s central, so easier for Skarre to use) and he takes magical.
My opponent wins the roll and elects to go first, again a good idea. He positions to threaten both zones, so I advance cautiously. My Wraith Engines however, are aggressive and toe both zones. One of them just needs to stay ~12″ away from the opposing Supreme Guardian.
Mordikaar feats and sends in the cats to take out about half of my Knights. The SG stays where it is while the Karax flood the zone. The Cetrati take position in the middle zone.
I had rolled a six on last turn’s Ritual Sacrifice so can afford to allocate 3 of the Stalkers. I feat, cast Dark Guidance and take the risk to also cast Ritual Sacrifice (this time rolling a 2), then Skarre takes position behind my objective which is B2B with a cloud.
The left Wraith Engine rolls well and takes out the Brute toeing the zone and one of the Ferox, it had Hollow, so no Machine Wraith, nor RFP. The Bane Knights take out the other 3 cats in the zone (the fourth was hanging back for Revive) and use their reposition to score. It’s a bit annoying that Touch of the Grave doesn’t stop soul collection, but at least they can’t be brought back.
I don’t feat on my other Wraith Engine because all it would do is kill some Karax and then get splatted by the Supreme Guardian. Instead he just positions a little closer, still outside 11″ of it.
In the middle I use the Bane Knights and 2 feated Stalkers to take out 5 of the Cetrati. The second Stalker only took 1 remaining hp off the last Cetratus, but he didn’t have anything else to do and I wanted to give my adversary more incentive to bring in the SG, in range of my Wraith Engine.
I put Tartarus, a Stalker and Darragh with Mortal Fear up in the middle zone, so I hopefully don’t get Essence Blasted to death, even at ARM 20.
I only score the one zone on the left and go to 1-0.
My opponent retaliates by contesting the zone on the left with a kitty, and the Karax and Supreme Guardian taking out the 2 Stalkers and a large part of the Bane Knights as expected. The Karax are unable to do a lot though, as I had put Serpent’s Coil up for Defensive Strike.
At the start of the turn, Mordikaar was considering using all the souls he got from the Supreme Guardian to try and assassinate after all. However, by the time he had finished reviving what he wanted/needed, there wasn’t enough fury left over to get through my screen and go for it. Crisis averted.
I clear the left zone again and the Wraith Engine on that side circles around to eat some support. The combined effort of the Wraith Engine and the remaining Knights leave the Supreme Guardian on 1 hp, so I commit my last Stalker to finish it.
After that, a trampling Despoiler and some Karax leave the Wraith Engine on 1 hp in return. Some more of my stuff dies and the left zone gets contested again, but my opponent is unable to score.
On my turn I consider assassinating, but deem scenario to be a safer route. I advance Skarre into the middle zone to cast Dark Guidance. The Knights kill the Ferox again. The circling Wraith Engine manages to one shot the objective and kills both a Beast Handler and Novitiate that are contesting the zone. The rest of my army, so Darragh, some Knights and the remaining Wraith Engine, who is now again not restricted in movement because there are no magical weapons around, all work together to take out the remaining Cetratus that was in the zone. This only leaves Mordikaar in the zone, so I can score it. This coupled with scoring the left zone again and having destroyed the objective, brings me to the 5-0 I needed to win.

This game went pretty much as expected, no big surprises, but it was still difficult, because my adversary was no slouch. A good, enjoyable game yet again.
We win the round 2-1 and our opposing team decides to drop to pursue playing in another event.

We start round 2 with only 4 teams of which one is getting a down pair. During the round, the others finish and somebody tells us we are now playing the finals.

Round 2
Skarre 3 vs Old Witch 2 (/Vlad 2)
Bunkers

My next opponent is again no stranger in the Warmachine world and I had met him several times already, but I don’t think I had ever had the pleasure of playing against him.
Skarre 3 has the best tools to play into either list, as Skarre 1 will just get decimated by all the berserking Doom Reavers with magical swords. Scourge definitely has tools to play into Armored Corps, with access to chain weapons to deal with Shock Troopers for instance, but seeing as I had an ARM cracking build and the Vlad list had little access to magical weapons, I was also counting on the fact that Wolves of Winter was the more likely pick for my opponent and I turned out to be right.
There’s actually not too much to say about this game. Windstorm is annoying, but not insurmountable for Skarre and the Kraken. My opponent is careful at first and just feeds me some Doom Reavers, with Alexia taking their souls. The Kraken can take care of a bunch of them, because they ran into the 7″ aim range. This should clear a path for some Bloodgorgers to start wreaking havoc, but there is one more of them ready to take a free strike. I send in Gerlak to take him out, but he promptly whiffs his attack roll, so I don’t get as much done this turn as I had wanted to. The Siren had tried to target Old Witch with her spray so she can catch some of the crazed swordsmen, but Alexia took care of that.
Next turn my opponent gets into gear. He sends in a lot of crazies and takes out swathes of Bloodgorgers and Marauders, as well as Gerlak, who deserved it, also getting ahead on scenario, but whiffing his attacks on the Warwitch Siren.
Vengeance takes care of a couple, the Kraken of some others with his melee attacks and who then uses Kill Shot to take a big chunk out of Alexia. Skarre feats so I can afford to cast Dash as well as my other spells. She doesn’t want to die just yet, so she stays back, only killing a couple of enemy warriors with her shots.
The Warwitch Siren was able to (barely) charge the 1 Escort that was contesting the left flag while ending up base-to-base with said flag.
And this is where it all starts going terribly wrong for the poor Khadorans; Jussika takes position behind the obstruction in the middle, which allows 1 Bloodgorger on either side of the house to take out half the opposing army (yes, Tough rolls were atrocious) This coupled with the Blood Witches finally dropping in after my opponent left his guard down and his Ternion too close to the edge, meant the tables had turned completely.
He desperately charged Old Witch forward on full camp, but she was no match for the combined might of my Blood Witches, some Kraken shots and Skarre 3, who pulled a corpse from the Misery Cage and cast Draconic Blessing on herself. Skarre killed the old hag on her final attack, but I still had some Marauders, Axiara, the Blood Priestess and Ragman left for backup.

It was a pleasure to finally play against this person and to see 2 Bloodgorgers live the dream and show their General how it’s done. A great game with some good back and forth.

Today the pool of teams was smaller than the day before and with there being some drops, we were done after round 2. Seeing as we won this round, this meant that we won the team tournament and we all got a nice medal to prove it.
Being done early was actually kind of nice, as it meant that, after some more chatting with other attendees, we could start the long trek home early.

Summary

I think I will stick to the second version of the Skarre 3 list for now. To be fair, my testing with Severa was inconclusive, mostly due to my own fault, and I still think she is a cool solo, but I’m not sure she brings the list what it actually needs. On the other hand both the Misery Cage and Siren were invaluable in the game that I had them, so I’m more inclined to keep them.
I really enjoy the swap. The mostly superfluous unit of trolls has been replaced with an ambush unit and some useful solos. The flank that usually has the Kraken now does feel much weaker, but there is enough that keeps it safe until reinforcements can come in.

All in all, I’m quite happy with how this pairing is shaking out in the brave new world, and I had a ton of fun this weekend with playing games, meeting new people and hanging out with (newly) familiar ones.

Thanks a lot to the organization. The event was excellent, went smooth, was in a nice venue, with decent food, had a great selection of drinks, good opponents, etc. Everything a successful event needs really.
I’ll definitely try to go again next year and, if you can, I can recommend everyone to do the same.