Welsh Masters 2022

Introduction

The Welsh Masters are finally back! The event was held in the new and improved venue of Firestorm Games in Cardiff (with air conditioning) and it was great.

I haven’t been writing reports much lately, but I’ve typed up a few things about the games I had last weekend anyway, so decided I might as well put it onto the worldwide web, just in case somebody has use for it.

I’m still tinkering with my pairing for the WTC, so made a few changes to my lists to see where they would take me. I squeezed in a Wraith Engine with Karchev & Deathjack, and downgraded a Nightwretch in my Deneghra1 list to include a second Misery Cage.

Round 1 – King of the Hill: K2D2 vs Thagrosh2

I win the rolloff and go first. He’s put his Hellmouth in “my” zone where there was also a building, so in my turn one I put Barathrum behind the objective so I can charge him next turn but he can’t drag me. I run the Wraith Engine up on my left flank; he’s got no magical weapons to speak of. He runs stuff up and puts up his buffs.
In my second turn I take the Hellmouth and then use Drag Below with Barathrum to get back. One of my Inflictors charges through the forest to take a Sorceress on Helion and to give my opponent something to kill, so I can posture for next round, when I intend to push for scenario. He easily takes out the Inflictor and puts Typhon in the zone next to the objective. Nobody scores for now. Next turn I feat and make a mistake by charging the WE into the objective, which applies Dark Shroud to both it and Typhon. I have 2 Brutes to charge Typhon and I have a fully loaded Desecrator that can get to it and the objective, which should’ve been enough with just DS. If I had kept the WE Incorporeal, it would not have died at all. I get slightly ahead on scenario.
His turn Manifest Destiny does a lot of work and I lose way more than I had hoped/expected. This trend continues while I’m trying to stay ahead on scenario and gradually grind down his army. I forgot when exactly, but I think at one point his Blight Archon survives a fully loaded Desecrator. My crits were abysmal this game.
My opponent ends up clocking himself and the score ends 4-2 in my favor. Was a really grindy, but good, game.

Round 2 – Invasion: Deneghra1 vs Madrak3 BOH

A terrible matchup on paper, but one I haven’t played yet, so let’s see what it’s all about. In theory I can get quite some work done on my feat, but the scenario isn’t exactly live enough for it to matter. I do win the rolloff and go first, so I can claim as much board space as possible. I attempt to execute my plan by feating and applying Crippling Grasp to the Fennblades that didn’t get Defender’s Ward, many die. I used Agrimony for this, which was probably a mistake; should’ve kept her for his feat turn. 1 Toughalo also dies, his beasts were also caught in the feat. I use one unit of pirates to jam the other unit of Fennblades as they weren’t in the feat and even if I kill 1, it just gives them Vengeance.
My opponent counter feats and gets some work done. He attempts an assassination with the (feated) Earthborn on a 4-camp Denny; not going to happen. We slowly grind each other down, him slightly faster than I, and my models don’t really come back much, obviously. Eventually he manages a crit knockdown with a bison and easily dispatches Deneghra. I was most likely going to lose this one anyway, but clock was a real option.
This will never be a good matchup, but maybe if I practice it some more, I can turn it into a playable one?

Round 3 – Split Decision: K2D2 vs Garryth2

I can sum up this list in 3 words: “I’m an idiot”.
I have second turn, put Death Ward on Karchev, trample forward, keeping out of range of all the AP shots, and camp 6. I’m in range of the Battle Mages, I get dragged in, I die. The end.

Round 4 – Bunkers: K2D2 vs Rhyas1

I win the rolloff and go first. I think I’m pretty clever by putting Barathrum in the middle forest out of threat of everything, but I miscaclulate; Rhyas gets in, kills Barathrum, sprints back. Fuck. I play the Wraith Engine on the right flank, contesting the flag and doing my best to stay away from Rhyas. K2D2 has to stay outside 17″ of Rhyas at all times, or die, so much fun. The Virtues are unable to deal with the battle engine as it’s immune to corrosion. Eventually I have to take it out of Incorporeal to kill a few of them so my Siren can Seduce the third one to walk away and score the flag. Many things are killed all the time; Rhyas has lots of fun one-rounding heavies and sprinting back. Eventually my opponent feats, in turn 4 or something, and the extra attacks do a lot of work. I do take a few things back in retaliation.
Eventually they run out of clock and I’m free to score 12-6 to finish the game.

Round 5 – Spread the Net: K2D2 vs Dreamer

I lose the roll and go second. In my turn 2 I get to feat and take his objective with ambushing mechanithralls, as well as kill his only Cage Rager, a Clockatrice, and leaving 1 Skin & Moans on 1 box, but with grievous wounds. Denny’s Venom deals with one of the Gremlin Swarms.
Next round I nearly have a heart attack when I start my turn by killing a Phantasm (easy activations first, right?) and my opponent measures 14″ to trigger Sacrifice to heal the 1 hp SNM. Luckily, it was out of range.
The rest of the game is mostly the Wraith Engine standing around providing Dark Shroud while I clean up and score 5-0.

Round 6 – Recon II: Denny1 vs Kaya2

While this was an interesting game, it actually boils down to me killing 1 heavy, and sometimes some support, per turn so I can score. My opponent has no RFP, so it’s impossible for him to keep dealing with the pirates.
Denny makes sure to not get eaten by Ghetorix (literally ran away), my opponent runs slightly lower on clock than me, so in my last few minutes I kill his objective to get ahead. He can’t crawl back and clocks himself while trying.

Round 7 – Split Decision: K2D2 vs Kaelyssa

Holy fuck, this game. I lose the roll and go second. My opponent feats on turn 2 after shooting 11 damage off the Wraith Engine with a Hyperion. He also manages to kill the Bloat with Kaelyssa, which is sad times for me, but good times for the poor Ryssovass. I back off a bit, but put Death Warded Barathrum in the zone near the flag, repair 9 boxes on the Wraith Engine and also put it in the zone. For the rest I just posture a bit behind the forest to prepare to fuck up at least 1 colosssal next turn. Opponent leaves Barathrum stationary on a handful of boxes. This becomes a trend, where most turn I have 1-2 stationary jacks that got their cortexes knocked out by Ryssovass.
On my next turn, I can run a Deathripper so Denny can put Curse of Shadows on a Hyperion, and the Wraith Engine can run. I can get up to 3 heavies onto it, but 1 Desecrator needs to trample and take 1 free strike, the other then needs to take another free strike and then I have an Inflictor for backup that can get through the forest with the help of Onslaught. The trampling Desecrator makes it but no crits so not too much damage, the next Desecrator charges in and loses its cortex to my opponent dealing 11 damage at dice-10. It does make up for it by critting 3 times in a row, but the last attack gets absorbed by the Hermit, so I need to send in the Inflictor to finish it off. I send the third Desecrator to take out the objective (and contest)
2 of my jacks get easily wrecked in retaliation as I didn’t actually get a lot of work done. Karchev himself needs to do work to keep my flag clear and I’m ahead on scenario, but my opponent is doing his best to change that. Having several useless jacks per turn is very frustrating.
Both of our clocks get very low, but my opponent’s is lower (Tough and Dying Breath eat a lot of time) and I’m still ahead. He manages to miss a boosted attack roll from Hyperion’s shot on the Wraith Engine that is on very few boxes in range of the Hermit after Elara did some work on it. Had he hit, he probably would’ve killed it and scored the zone and flag. After this he tries to go for my objective, as the assassination seems unlikely, but he leaves it on three. He’s massively ahead on attrition, but I have a chance to score it out if I can clear my flag. I do, but his Dying Breath attack takes out my objective, ruining my plan.
The game ends on the bottom of turn 7, with him on 1 second and me ahead by 2 CP. If he had killed the Wraith Engine and scored 2 points, I would’ve lost on AP. This shit is bad for my heart…

Summary

I’m beyond ecstatic about my 5-2 result, but I do need to work on the consistency; a few of those games (both wins and losses) could just as easily have gone the other way. I am quite happy with both lists though. They both ask different questions and bring different answers. I wish I had points for a second Bloat and Siren in the K2D2 list, but alas.

The pair works relatively well, especially since nobody actually remembers Ghost Fleet, but it does currently have some hard dodges, at least on paper, that I have to work on.

While there are a few minor nitpicks and feedback points on the event going forward, it was honestly really great and went about as well as you can expect of an event with 86 players. I intend to be back there again and I can only recommend you all to do the same. Kudos to the organizers for a job well done.

Sadly I didn’t win best in faction as Andrew Devine was a real champ and ended 6-1 with his K2D2/Skarre1 pairing. He only lost the Karchev-off in the semi-finals and took third place! Congratulations to him.