Thursday, October 19, 2017

Warmachine Hordes Japan Open Team Championship

Finally, the day has come!  The Japan Open Team Championship has arrived!  That's right, it's time for the Rumble Round the Ramparts... the Clash at the Castle... and it was every bit as amazing as it should have been.  Seven teams from around Japan joined us in Fukuyama for two days of gaming and camaraderie, meals and chatting.  The weather couldn't have been better, and this year everyone made it on time for the opening speech (last year the train from Tokyo was unexpectedly late and one match got started late).  Sadly, we were not able to create a final 8th team, so every turn one team had a pass.  Hopefully next year we will be able to fill in the final three spots! Hopefully next year Leland will be ready to join us, and our coordinator for the last 5 years, Sarge, is stepping down, so that he can take part as well... so there's two right there!

The teams for this year!

TEAM ORDO NON PANTICUS  (Hiroshima A team)

Named for this team's disdain for anyone trying to play with an unpainted army, tied together with their enjoyment of the Warhammer 40K universe, Hiroshima's top players have become a unit fighting against the unpainted in the darkness of the far future.

DTB, with his Trollblood army, using Doomshaper 3 and Calandra

Rantei, with his Skorne army, using Rasheth and Makeda 1

The Kid, with his Cryx army, using Deneghra 1 and Goreshade 1

These guys are going to be hard to beat!  Rantei is one of the best players that I've had the pleasure to play against, and The Kid is a total up and comer.  Fingers crossed that we don't have to play them.

TEAM TRI ARROWS  (Hiroshima B team)

Our team name is a shout out to Hiroshima prefecture.  Long long ago, the warlord of this area was trying to convince his three sons to work together by asking them each to break one arrow.  When they were all able to do so, he gave them three arrows together, which none of them could break.  So, teamwork and stuff.  Beru and I were both awarded the Diplomat award last year, so this is apparently also known as "Team Good Sport."

Kommissar Koala, with my Protectorate of Menoth army, using Severius 2 and Reznik 2

Beru, with his Cygnar army, using Stryker 1 and Sloan

Tetsu, with his Mercenary army, using Ossrum and Magnus 1

Woot!  We're looking good and ready to roll! 

TEAM BAND OF HEROES  (Osaka A team)
As the name suggests, this is a team completely made of Trollblood players.  The rules for team tournaments state that teammates cannot share the same caster, so these Heroes decided to each play one version of Doomshaper plus another warlock!

Kimamana, with his Trollblood army, using Doomshaper 1 and Madrak 3
Tabibito, with his Trollblood army, using Doomshaper 3 and Borka 1

Genki, with his Trollblood army, using Doomshaper 2 and Gunnbjorn

Yes, that is a Sea King.  It looks AWESOME!  Not only are Trolls tough, but this team has brought four... that's right, FOUR... gargantuans... yikes!  Osaka A is full of very very good players.  This will be a hard team to beat!


TEAM SECRET WEAPON  (Osaka B team)

One word.... Grymkin.  The secret weapon.  And this team is fielding TWO Grymkin armies.  For most of us, myself included, this will be the first chance to face off against Grymkin, and I can't help myself... I want to play against them so badly!  Let's hope the match ups work in my favor!

JC, with his Grymkin army, using The Dreamer and The Heretic

Niwaniwa, with his Retrubution of Scyrah army, using Thyron and Ravyn

Enzo, with his Grymkin army, using The Child and The Wanderer
Enzo's paint job is OFF THE HOOK!!!  I mean, WOW!!!  Wow!!!  Now I REALLY WANT TO PLAY AGAINST THEM!!!!  Here... more photos of this amazing army...
In case you are wondering, yes, I did shake that Cage Rager... and the cages are on real chain!  So they rattle around and wiggle as you shake it!  Hahaha!

TEAM DRAGON FORCE     (Team Tokyo)
This is a great team.  I only get to meet these guys once a year, but Daizo and Mitchell are always good for a game.  I played both of them last year, and I'm really looking forward to facing off against them if we can!  Daizo is a fellow Protectorate player, but for some reason he decided to bring his Skorne army this time!  HERESY!!!

Daizo, with his Skorne army, using Makeda 2 and Xerxis 2

Mitchell, with his Cryx army, using Denegrah 2 and The Witch Coven

Nobi, with his Retribution of Scyrah army, using Issyria and Vyros 2

Another set of well painted armies and quality players behind them!  While I'm not sure that I could beat any of the guys on this team, I really hope that we get matched up for a fun game.

TEAM THREE DIRTY SCARECROWS     (Hiroshima C Team)
The last of the Hiroshima teams... named because these guys are tall, extremely lanky fellows, though... I'm not sure how dirty they are, hahaha!

Baru, with his Cryx army, using Venethrax and Denegrah 1


Ryosangata, with his Retrubution of Scyrah army, using Issyria and Vyros 2

Race, with his Legion of Everblight army, using Llylith 3 and Thagrosh 1

With three teams, Hiroshima Prefecture is the most represented, followed closely by Tokyo and Osaka, so hopefully at least one of our teams can go the distance and win the day!

TEAM ONE HANDED BOXER VS. THE FLYING GUILLOTINE      (Team Toky-oka)
Okay, so there is no real place in Japan called Toky-oka.  This team is a mash-up of two Tokyo players and a Fukuokay player.  The name may seem weird, but it gets even stranger when you realize that one of the players literally has only one arm... so, yeah.

Aoichiro, with his Convergence of Cyriss army, using Axis and Father Lucant


Yamanaka, with his Mercenary army, using Magnus 1 and Ashlynn d'Elyse

M-saya, with his Cygnar army, using Captain Darius and Constance Blaize

I don't know this team very well.  I played Aoichiro three years ago at the 2nd Japan Open (this is the 5th JO).  He seemed nice enough, though a truly tough nut to crack.  Not to mention, I don't think a lot of people have a chance to play a good amount against the Convergence, so it's hard to come up with a strategy to beat them.

Well, that's all the teams!  Good luck, everyone!  But before I go into the different rounds, time for a word from our sponsers!

THE SPONSORS
Yes!  That's right!  This year, the Japan Open had sponsorship from several companies who did a great job helping promote the tournament.  Those sponsers are... drumroll please!
discountgamesinc.com , with a $25 gift certificate for the members of the 1st team
brokenegggames.com , $35 gift certificate for the members of the 1st team
gamemat.eu , who, of course, donated 2 mats
privateerpress.com , naturally, with pins and certificates for the top 3 teams
Look at that table!  Full of prizes to give away... and if you can believe it, that's not even all of them!  In addition to prizes for all three members of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place teams, everyone was also given two raffle tickets, and prizes were picked randomly throughout the day.  We had 2D terrain sets generously donated by gamemat.eu, measuring sticks gifted by Broken Egg Games, some goodies from Privateer Press' Summer Rampage, one of the always appropriate Shredder plushies, the gift certificates mentioned above, and of course, as I also mention, the 2 mats from gamemat.eu.  Whatever it takes, I'm determined not to go home empty handed this year!! (I didn't last year, either, as I came away with the coveted Diplomat award!)

Alright, that's all the preliminaries!  Time to get down to the games.  DTB and Sarge had spent a large part of the day before setting up tables, and they came out great!  Observe!
I like to imagine that this table was a shout out to me!  That's right, a Protectorate table!  What's that you say?  They had a table for almost every faction?  Doesn't matter, this table was made just for me!
A nice, volcanic lava table, with plenty of burning ground terrain features!  This devastated landscape is of course the Cryx table... I told them they should add a giant dragon figure, and if the game went past the 6th round, Lord Toruk would arise from the bowels of the volcano and eat everyone!
Northkin Trollblood table!  You can tell DTB definitely had a hand in crafting this table!  I can tell just looking at it that we may have to deal with a Northkin army next year, now that the new Trollblood Theme force for the wintery cousins to the trolls is out, along with one of the BEST BATTLE ENGINES EVER on the way (really.  I mean, REALLY.  A giant beer keg pulled by two polar bears?  EPIC!)

These are just a few of the amazing tables that teams used to battle to the finish on.

Round 1
Here are the match-ups for the first round!  Applause, please!
     Ordo Non Painticus  Vs.  Band of Heroes
     Dragon Force Vs. Three Dirty Scarecrows
     Tri Arrows Vs. Secret Weapon
     OHBVFG took the pass for this round
The pass round was too bad during a tourney, but there was nothing that could be done about it.  Each member of the pass team received a small gift from Sarge, 3 control points and 100 army destroy points to make up for it, and the members were able to have practice games to keep their edge... Leland took on M-saya and his Constance Blaize force with his own Cygnar army, while Aoichiro and Yamanaka took on each other.

Tri Arrows against Secret Weapon!  Yes!  I got to face off against J.C., using his The Dreamer force, and I was loving it!  The Dreamer is one of the Defiers that I am the most interested in, so I was excited to see her in action, and I was not disappointed!  I felt bad that I had to keep asking J.C. about his rules, but he was super patient with me, and we had a great game!  I took on his force with Reznik, hoping make sure his beasts' Flesh Was Weak!!!  That and, maybe for the first time, I might get to use Spellpiercer to hand out magical weapons to fight off the hordes of incorporeal models that were flooding at me!  Sadly, Reznik was not able to overcome the tide of storybook horrors that flooded the field, though it was a pretty close battle!  All I can say is that the Blood of Martyrs took three turns to kill off a Cage Rager that should have only taken one round, thus ruining my plans to disrupt The Dreamer.  Alas, we ran out of time, and it went to control points.  J.C. had 4 to my 3, not to mention about 30 more destroyed army points than I did, giving him the victory!  Well played!

The winners for this round!  Ordo Non Painticus, Dragon Force, and Secret Weapon!

I've Got a Golden Ticket
After the first round, we took a lunch break.  While everyone was away, Sarge was busy looking over the armies to decide who would go into the finals for the painting competition.  When the teams returned from delicious dining, the armies selected had a Golden Ticket waiting for time!  All tournament members would vote on the winners after the final matches.  Those teams with the golden tickets were...

Mitchell and his Cryx army!
Enzo with his Grymkin army!
Genki with his Trollblood army!

Difficult choices!  All of these are really beautiful armies with very talented painters.  I can't wait to see who will win!

Round 2
This year, the Japan Open had only 3 rounds, so round 2 was VERY important for deciding who was going to wind up at the Championship tables!  The matchups!
     Ordo Non Painticus Vs. Dragon Force
     Band of Heroes Vs. Three Dirty Scarecrows
     Secret Weapon Vs. OHBVFG
     Tri Arrows took the pass this round.

Well, taking the pass wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it did have an upside!  It was the only chance I had to play against my teammate, Beru, who is one of my favorite people to play against.  I took out Severius to get a little practice against his Stryker army, and we had a rousing battle... on the Protectorate table!  Hahaha!  It was tons of fun.  Though I did end up losing the game, it was probably the best match I had all day! Tetsu paired off against Leland, and proceeded to completely wipe the floor with our newest member... a bit of a face palm moment.  Listen, you don't destroy a new player just because you can.  It's just mean, and it makes them wonder if this is really such a fun game.  Sorry, Leland!  We'll get you a better game next time!

The winners for this round... Ordo Non Painticus, Band of Heroes, and Secret Weapon!

Round 3
This is it!  The last round of the day... and on the Championship table, our very own Ordo Non Painticus!  The other two Hiroshima teams have not had a great showing (though we all had fun), both of us losing both rounds (well, ok, Tri Arrows did "win" the pass round, but still).  Ordo is our last hope!  Good luck! The final matchups!
     Championship: Ordo Non Painticus Vs. Secret Weapon
     Dragon Force Vs. Tri Arrows
     OHBVFG Vs. Band of Heroes
     Three Dirty Scarecrows took the pass this round.

I can't believe it!  At the beginning of the day, I wanted to play against a Grymkin army, Beru, and Mitchell... and here in the final round, I got the hat trick of wish granting, and faced off against Mitchell's Denegrah force with Severius (thank goodness I had a practice round with Beru!).  As always, Mitchell was a joy to play against.  He's incredibly knowledgable about not only his own army, but the other armies as well, and he pretty much was in control of our battle the whole time... it didn't help that I forgot he had a unit of ambushing mechanithralls that got into my back field and put my 'caster on his heels pretty effectively.  But, it was still an amazing game!  My MVP though was the Judicator.  In our last round, it took everything that Mitchell could throw at it to destroy it, due to sheer dumb luck on my part.  Nightmare even charged, boosting damage while Judicator was suffering under Shadow Bind, and still only did about 10 damage total!  Boom!  Carrion Thralls, Mechanithralls, Pistol Wraiths, Bile Thralls, all they did was chip away when they should have been melting it to slag.  Finally, in the final attack that Mitchell would be able to take against the colossal, a Bile Thrall was able to hit with an acid shot and finally the valiant machine went down.  Sadly for me, my super colossal was contesting a zone and a flag, so Mitchell was catapulted into the victory with more than enough control points.  So.  Much.  Fun!

The winners for this round... Dragon Force and Band of Heroes... and the winner or the champion table was....

Results!
Ordo Non Painticus WINS!!!!!!
Good job, Ordo!  Keeping the dream alive for Hiroshima Prefecture!  In a 2-1 victory over Secret Weapon, they sealed the victory, and took home the goods!
1st place:  Ordo Non Painticus
2nd place:  Band of Heroes
3rd place:  Secret Weapon
Then, it was time for voting on the best painted army... I'm sure you could already guess who I voted for!  The results for Best Painting!
3rd Place:  Mitchell and his Cryx army!

2nd Place:  Genki and his Trollblood army!

And the winner is..... Enzo with his Grymkin army!

So, here are a few more shots of that amazing army!
Look!  Models specifically for the shadow arcana!  Look at that Cage Rager base.
I love how he re-posed this Child model so that Dolly is holding her!
And for his prize, Enzo received one of the game mats!  Congrats!  Job well done!

Then, it was time for the raffle!  And wouldn't you know it, I won both of my tickets!  I picked up some warjack damage tokens and one of the 2D terrain sets, desert themed, of course, for the Protectorate!

As we wrap, here are a few more amazing models that came out to play!
From Race's Legion army...
From Rantei's Skorne army...
From DTB's Trollblood army...
From Genki's Trollblood army...

And with that... the day was over.  A big thanks to Sarge for putting on a great day for everyone!
I look forward to seeing everyone next year for the 6th Japan Open!
The next gaming day for the Fukuyama Gaming Club is October 29th!  Come get a game!

Friday, October 6, 2017

AAR: Protectorate Vs. Trollkin - The Soothsayer Attacks

On Sunday, October 17, the Fukuyama Gaming Club braved a typhoon to hold our latest gaming day.  No kidding!  I live about an hour away from where our club meets.  An hour to the East.  And since the typhoons around here always go West to East, that means I drove straight into the arms of the storm as it crept closer and closer.  Imagine me, peaked Commissar cap pulled down, making the sign of the Aquila and crying "For the Emperor" as my car slid under the cloud cover... or I guess, in more recent times, "For Menoth!"  I did manage to time my trip West to get in before the worst of the storm hit, and if everything went right, I'd be ready to head home after the storm had passed (which is exactly what happened after a delicious dinner at one of our favorite places, Boogie Buns).  Sadly, most of the rest of our team members live farther to the West, and therefore were unable to get ahead of the typhoon.  That left myself, DTB, and Leland for the last pre tourney practice.  A pretty standard meeting for us, but we were hoping the Hiroshima boys would make it so that we could get some team practice in.  Oh well, no point in bemoaning random acts of nature.  Three of us it would have to be.  Unfortunately for Leland, this did mean that he didn't get a game in.  In two weeks (as of the meeting... three days as of today!), the Warmachine/ Hordes Japan Open Team Championship is on!  And so, while we had time for two games, Leland is not quite ready to take on the ferocity of a pre-tourney practice round.  Next month, we'll make sure he gets plenty of game time!  Thus it was that yet again, the armies of the Trollkin faced off against the might of the Protectorate, in our eternal struggle for dominance... But first!

Announcements:
That's right!  Time for our new feature!  Announcements, announcements, ANNOUNCEMENTS!  First off... October 8th is the WHJOTC!!  Finally, after months of preparation, the tournament is here!  If you're in the area, stop by the community center behind the castle in Fukuyama City!  7 teams are locked in, including my own Tri-Arrows (a tip of the hat to the feudal lord who used to control Hiroshima prefecture) and DTB's Ordo Non Painticus.  An 8th team of singles is being created to flush out the roster.
Second ... The day after the tournament, October 9th, is going to be a free gaming day.  There will be people sticking around after the tournament to get friendly games in.  Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima... and possibly Kyushu will all be represented, so if you don't want the pressure of a tourney but do want to meet some new players, this is a good day to drop by for a game.
Lastly... the next regular meeting of the Fukuyama Gaming Club will be on October 29th.  Man, October is a busy month for the FGC!!  We'll all be breaking out new army lists, free for the first time in a few months to just play around.  Heck, we might even get in some more Widower's Wood or other board games.  So stop by if you've got the urge!

And now, back to our Troll / PoM throw down!
 Trolls... I feel like I have played Trollkin eight zillion times recently!  DTB actually was getting a little snippy with me about writing my victories against the boys in blue, which is, of course, patently ridiculous.  I could count the times I've beaten DTB on one hand, while he has crushed my armies beneath his Trolly boots time and time again.  So, game on, DTB!  We ended up with the Breakdown scenario, so we had two round zones, scoreable by units, connected by a rectangular zone scoreable by warjacks/warbeasts.   First person to have 5 more points than their opponent wins!  I came up tops on the roll for the game, but I decided to choose my board edge and made DTB go first.

The forces for today's battle!
Army Lists, Trollbloods: 
Calandra's Star Crossed fighters
Oh my gosh!  Calandra!  I have been trying to convince DTB to run Calandra in the tournament for YEARS!!!  Literally years.  And here she is, in all her Trollish glory!  Awww, DTB!  Oh yeah, the list....
     Warlock: Calandra
                     Mauler x2
                     Earthborn Dire Troll
                     Gudrun the Wanderer (in this game, proxied by the Thrullig)
                     Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters
                     Champions Maximum Unit
                     Skaldi
                     Sons of Bragg

Army List, Protectorate of Menoth:
Armies of Execution
I know, I know, we've seen this list a zillion times.  Well, this shall be the LAST TIME!!!  Mua-hahaha!  After the tournament is over, it's time for some experimenting with some new armies and a warcaster or two that I've never used before.  So, for the final time.... YOUR FLESH IS WEAK!!!
     Warcaster: Reznik, the Wrath of Ages
                       Avatar of Menoth
                       Guardian
                       Blood of Martyrs
                       Scourge of Heresy
                       Revenger
                       Choir of Menoth, minimum unit
                       Idrian Skirmishers
                          +  Chieftain and Scout
                       Heirophant

 Setup, Trollbloods:
Setting up a win?
 Calandra set up in the middle of the deployment zone, with a Mauler to the left and a Mauler behind.  Next to the Mauler went the Earth Born Dire Troll, and on the other side of Calandra went the SOB's.  Those bums, haha!  The Champions went over on the right flank, and Cylena Raefyll and her Hunters went of the left.

Setup, Protectorate of Menoth:
Protectorate sets up
As I so often do, I decided to split up Reznik and the Avatar, one on each side.  Between them, I set up the Scourge, the Guardian, the Blood, and the Repenter, with the choir sliding in where they fit.  The Heirophant wedged in between the Scourge and Reznik.

Advanced Deployment, Trollbloods:
Finally, DTB has some advanced deployment!  And by some, I mean... one.  One model.  Gudrun the Wanderer got placed ahead of the Hunters at the edge of the rubble pit.  With pathfinder, the rubble won't bother him, so he's in a great position to get in my way.
The Soothsayer of the Glimmerwood


Advanced Deployment, Protectorate:
The Idrians went out front into the pond to screen Reznik from the Hunters and Gudrun.  I've never fought against the Wanderer before, and so I'm not sure how much of a threat he is, but better to be safe than sorry when it comes to caster protection.  And just to add that little extra bit, the Idrians made him their prey.

Game on, Trollbloods!  Let's see if Calandra can see the smack down coming her way!
DTB's signature rock on face
Our Story:
As his forces cut a swathe of destruction in the Creator's name, Reznik moved on a small village of Trollkin on the edges of the Glimmerwood.  Just as his forces were poised to sweep down on the worshipers of Dhunia, the sound of trees breaking brought him up short.  An army of trolls and their kin stepped forward from the shadows of the forest, moving to intercept him.  They were led by a woman, and inwardly Reznik was uneasy, as he knew it must be Calandra, a future seer and protector of the area.

Round 1, Trollblood:
The Champs started off the game by running forward, clumping together in three man groups to maintain their defensive line ability.  The SOB's ran towards the middle of the board, and Gudrun ran into the rubble.  The hunters ran towards the area between the middle and right zones.  Calandra put Bullet Dodger on the "Pirate" Mauler (he's modeled with a treasure chest on his base), and the EBDT's animus Earth's Blessing on herself, along with Star Crossed, her signature spell.  Then, in DTB's signature move, she failed a charge on the Heirophant for a little extra movement.  The non-pirate Mauler (or the Boring Mauler, as I call him) riled and ran, as did the Pirate Mauler and the EBDT.
Run towards the food, boys!
Round 1, Protectorate of Menoth:
The Idrians moved up behind the wall, and a 6 man CRA put three damage onto Gudrun.  And then, of course, I made a fatal flaw... instead of finishing off Gudurn, I took shots at the hunters, killing off two of them before making a SECOND MISTAKE by repositioning off of the wall.  D'oh!  Oh well, time to focus!  The Avatar recieved two focus from Menoth and ran into the zone on the side to head off the Champions from having access to my back field.  The Revenger runs onto the hill, and the Blood of Martyers ran up behind him.  The Guardian ran straight forward, and the Choir moved up, chanting for passage for the Guardian, Blood, and Scourge.  The Heirophant moved and put Harmonious Exaltation on Reznik.  To finish up, Reznik moved into the pond, put Death March on the Idrians, and Lamentation on himself.
A little shuffle foot to see who will charge first

 Round 2, Trollblood:
Calandra pulled all the fury on the board up to her full fury score, and upkept Bullet Dodger.  Gudrun charged the Idrians and killed three of them.  The Hunters walked up to the wall THAT I SHOULD HAVE KEPT, keeping 3 of them back, and shoot 5 Idrians to death.  The SOB's ran forward to get into position in the middle of the field, and the Pirate Mauler also ran to lip the zone.  The Boring Mauler riled and ran, and the EBDT ran as well.  Calandra cast Star Crossed and moved up to keep out of the kill box (some scenerio's have a kill box, which means that your warcaster/ warlock must stay 12" away from all table edges after the second player's second turn).  The Champs ended up the turn by running into the left circular zone.  One came up to face off with the Avatar, and the others stayed back a little to keep out of the Avatar's killing zone.
The battle begins!
Round 2, Protectorate:
All spells upkept!  The Idrians wiggled a bit in their Vengence action, and then they took their turn.  Learning from my mistake last turn, I pumped two CRA's into Gudrun to wipe him off the board.  Success!  BUT!  Gudrun had a trick up his sleeve.  Once a game, when he dies, he just simply comes back to life.  Yup.  Full health.  He's knocked down, which seems like it might be a good thing, but he has a special rule... Feign Death.  So he can't be target by ranged attacks while he's knocked down.  Oh yeah, or magic.  Yeesh!  So, he's still alive.  The Scourge charged the SOB's, managed to kill off Rhudd.  The Revenger moved up, just lipping the left corner of the middle zone.
Wait, Reznik!  You forgot to exult!
Reznik, too excited to get going, forgot to wait for his Heirophant to go first (d'oh!!!) and moved up, casting The Flesh is Weak at the Pirate Mauler... and MISSED!!!  Double d'oh!!!  Luckily, it's an AOE attack, so it scattered off of the Pirate Mauler... and hit the other Mauler!  Hahaha, okay, I guess that worked out okay.  He then repositioned a bit farther back.  The Guardian hauled his shiny metal butt over to the pond to cover Reznik from a charge from the missed Mauler.  The Choir, a bit late, moved up to put Passage on the Blood and the Scourge.  The Blood of Martyers ran into cover behind a choir member to protect itself from the super scary Mauler, while the Avatar killed two Champs and then used Menoth's Gaze to keep them from getting away.  Yikes!  I'm in a pretty bad way.  I'm not quite sure what I thought I was doing, but it was almost completely the wrong thing to do.  We'll see if I can bring things around next turn.  I'm pretty sure the Avatar is toast with four charging weapon masters with two attacks each coming for him... a Mauler in prime position to charge... Gudrun with any other tricks he might have... Yeesh!


Round 3, Trollbloods:
Calandra again leeched to full fury and upkept Bullet Dodger, and Gudrun took his turn.  Standing up, he punked one poor Idrian.  The Hunters moved into an L shape along the wall and back, and finished killing off the rest of the Idrians.  Calandra moved up and FEATED!!!  Oh man, this is not going to be good.  I love her feat.  It's both totally in her character, and really so much more powerful than people give it credit for.  Friendly models in her control range can re-roll 1's and 2's.  It's sooo good.  So, usually if your opponent needs 6's or 7's to hit and can't boost (like, warrior units), they will miss 3 or 4 out of 10 attacks.  But with Calandra's feat, they will pretty much hit every time.  Brutal!  And of course, DTB made sure that everything was in her feat range, which isn't so hard since her control range is 16"!  Okay, here we go... we'll see what's left after he rampages through my troops.  Calandra then cast Star Crossed, and put the animus Rage on the Pirate Mauler.  The SOB's charged the Choir member the Blood was hiding behind (too bad they can't protect themselves!) and that poor soul died before their mighty attack!  The Pirate Mauler walked into combat with the Scourge... One hit... Two hits... Chain Attack Grab and Smash... two additional attacks, and the Scourge became a crumpled can.  The other Mauler, unable to run, charge, slam, or trample, in a fit of pique walked over to the Revenger and took out his frustration by utterly destroying it.  And as I had feared, the remaining Champs charged at the Avatar and just like that, I was down three jacks.  And DTB was up three control points.

Oof... wait, where did all my jacks go?
Round 3, Protectorate of Menoth:
Oh, MAN!!  That was bad.  DTB is in control of all three zones.  If I leave even one unchallenged, he'll pick up another at the end of my turn, and another at the end of his turn, giving him 5 and then win.  So... actually, it's not possible, since there is no way for me to get a model that can contest into the left zone.  I hereby conceede this game.  But before I run out of time, I am going to KILL THAT MAULER!!!!.  So, Reznik loaded up the Blood and the Guardian.  The Guardian charged the SOB standing in the way of the Blood's charge attack.  A critical hit, and the little brat got pitched over into the Mauler, dealing no damage, but getting him well out of the way.  The Choir got back into formation and put Battle on the Blood, Reznik activated and put Boundless Charge on the Blood for the additional movement, and then it was time!  CHARGE!!!  And just like that, with the Hand of Vengence bonus because a friend died within 5", and the bonus from Battle, the Blood chopped up that Mauler into tiny little pieces, before staring down at the knocked down Son of Brag and daring him to make a move.
That's right!  Come at me, brah!

 Conclusion:
Victory for Trollbloods!  Calandra moved forward fearlessly until she and Reznik were face to face.  "Leave," she said, confidence and righteousness resonant in her voice.  "I have seen the omens, and you fate lies not within the Glimmerwood."  She leaned toward the towering executioner, one hand reaching up to rest on one of the horses, and spoke words to the warcaster that no other could hear.  Reznik gave no response to her words, but after a moment, he nodded to her, motioned to his remaining forces, and quit the field, leaving the Glimmerwood far behind.
Get out of here, human!
Another great game with DTB.  He's a great opponent, and is always willing to go over a game once it's over to point out my missteps and give advice on what I should have done.  But, while I really enjoy playing against him, I really really hope that I don't face him in the tourney.  He's had about 8 months of practice with against my Reznik list, and he knows all my tricks!

Next post.... the long awaited Warmachine / Hordes Japan Open Team Championship!  Wish me luck!