It's the timing, fool!

So the 4th Iron Cabal is history and as always it was a very enjoyable experience. :-) This time it was especially nice becomes some guys from Bern, Basel, and even Bavaria showed up for the tournament. :-)

This tournament was also the second and last qualifier for the Swiss National Team for the World Team Championship in October. To make a long story short, I won't be on the team as I did better than I thought, but I am still far from doing well enough.

My tournament score sheet - three losses and one win with pDoomshaper and pGrim.

Game 1 - pDoomshaper vs Kromac

Setup

In my first game vs. Thomas Fuchs I had a really hard time to decide what list to play. On the one hand I was afraid of playing the pDoomshaper tier list as I knew he'd outmaneuver me with his stones. On the other hand, I didn't wanna play pGrim as I felt that list lacked the hitting power to be a serious threat to his warbeasts.

Well, it ended with a dead pDoomshaper. I realized that I should not play a slow and  beast heavy list against Circle again. I guess I should try playing my pGrim list against +Robi Deola next. Also what completely threw me off was Kromac's spell that didn't let me cast any spells for one round. This is awful for a pDoomshaper list where a lot depends on spells.

Game 2 - pGrim vs. Vladidmir

I forgot to take pictures in my game vs. Andreas Bernrieder for the most part. The story is quickly told - his Winter Guard sprayed away my front line. Basically they kept spraying my fennblades and my Nyss Hunters without seeing them ever get into a significant range to do anything. My warbeasts and pGrim were able to build up some pressure with their shooting, but it was too little and too late. I wonder if I should have run pGrim and the beasts more upfront so they'd get more chances for shooting.

Game 3 - pGrim vs. eMadrak

I went into my game with Chris Lehner with the knowledge that eMadrak and Kriel Warriors are an extremely good combo, but it never was of interest for me as I always thought other Trollbloods warlock's do even more awesome stuff.

Early in this game already, the Long Riders clashed into my Nyss Hunters and absorbed them for the rest of the game. In the center, the War Waggon and the Kriel Warriors built up the pressure. I guess I can summarize the game that I didn't feel like anything in his list is overpowered, but if your list can do many many well powered hit, every army dies sooner or later. pGrim was shot by eMadrak's thrown axe.

Game 4 - pDoomshaper vs. eCaine

Now this was the game that really sweetened the day for me. Everything that went wrong in the previous games suddenly started to work here as if it were some magic. I felt I am going to win this game as soon as +Andreas Balmer's Greygore Boomhowler & Co. stopped a couple inches short of my front line and started shooting their Blunderbusses. Back when I was playing Cygnar, I always did that when I wasn't happy with the movement at all.
Well, on my next turn on the left flank, the Runeshapers started shelling templates into the Gun Mages (primarily) and Greygore Boomhowler & Co. Mulg gave them a hand whereas the EBDT took care of everything on the right flank. The Mountain King held the center and killed Rowdy and the Stormclad over the course of the game.

I got a heart attack when +Andreas Balmer used Gatecrasher to teleport into pDoomshaper's back arc - I had forgotten about the spell and felt save behind Janissa's wall. I expected any kind of attack to come from the front of the wall.
Either way, once eCaine had teleported, I knew the only thing to save me was his limited focus left - Gatecrasher is quite expensive. My pDoomshaper indeed did survive because +Andreas Balmer didn't think about Hordes warlocks being able to transfer damage. pDoomshaper had almost full Fury (6/7) and Mulg hardly any damage - I had to transfer only once, pDoomshaper was able to suck up the rest. Once it was my turn again, pDoomshaper boosted his To Hit rolls and clubbed eCaine to death.

General Thoughts

I lose too many games because many models of mine don't really do anything. Why is that so? Because they are on the wrong spot at the wrong time. That's why my opponent tears me apart bit by bit while frustrated reacting is the only thing left to me.
How to solve that?
With better movement of my pieces and setting them up at the very beginning of the game in the first place.
I guess I will have to talk +Gergely Gati into doing learning games where we more or less just move around the pieces in various scenarios and try to imagine what would hapen.