The social aspects of the Iron Cabal

Fathers vs. Sons

For me the most enjoyable aspect about the Iron Cabal tournament clearly is the social one. One big reason is that people from all over Switzerland unite to play WM/H together; since we are a small country with an even smaller community, this feels quite good.

Another reason is that +Robi Deola always comes up with new and cool ideas, like in the IC4 we had a Fathers vs. Sons special price as both +Gergely Gati and +Andre Suwanda play with their offspring. The rule was very simple: whoever placed better would either get the bottle of Champagne (Fathers) or the Coke (Sons). Actually, the Fathers trailed their sons throughout the tournament until the final game when they were able to close in for a tie, so we had two (i.e. four) lucky victors. :-D

However, for me the most important part of the tournament is lunch, even more important than giving away the prizes. Nothing beats taking a break and chat through all the sense and nonsense any way remotely connected with WM/H. Last Sunday's topic were the benefits of licking cats and toads. Don't ask me why.

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.

Iron Cabal 3 review, part 1 of 2

Winner of the Iron Cabal 3: Henrik (black shirt, 3rd place), cb_crusader (red shirt, 2nd place), and Botond (in his lucky green shirt, 1st place).

Well, here's my Iron Cabal 3 recap in pictures. Out of four games I managed to win two and ranked 12/22.

Registration - why do we keep printing nice lists in advance just to scribble them last second on a sheet provided by the TO? ^^

The Knights from St. Gallen arrive...

...the guys from Bern have last minute strategic discussions...

...the first participant is already worshiping the glue god...

...and final questions are being cleared.

Waiting for the official start. (Did you admire lovely flowers on the side of the road, Tudes? ^^ )

Game 1 vs. Sidarius Calvin (Mercenaries, Ashlynn D'Elyse)

I decided to go for my pMadrak brick list and started to move it forward.

Sid starts to wrap his army around the lake and the tower in order to play a refused flank.

I am desperately trying to pull my Kriel Warriors to the left in order to bind the Gun Mages in close combat.

The Gun Mages make quick work of my Kriel Warriors, I run into the danger of loosing this game by loosing my left flank. I commit the Axer to the left flank, too, while the EBDT has to kill the Jacks in the center alone.

Ashlynn charges in on my Axer but fails to kill him. In my next turn  my limit of three Fury on the Axer are just enough to hit back and boost the necessary To Hit and To Wound rolls.

So I won game 1 based on a caster kill rather lucky - one bad dice roll of my Axer and it would have been over for me. The most interesting experience for me was Ashlynn's feat turn - it sounds devastating on paper, but once you get to feel it you realize how devastating it really is!

Game 2 vs. Revanon (Cryx, eDeneghra)

This was the game with the two large control zones one needs to score one after the other. I picked my Grim list to just bomb away what is in either zone.

Me moving forward and throwing bombs on the chickens/arc nodes.

The Kriel Warriors run into base to base contact with whatever undead stuff is standing in front of them, the Bomber keeps throwing bombs at the arc nodes and successfully kills one.

The Nyss fire away at the last arc node, Grim knocks the Warjack down to the left while the Bomber throws bombs at him, the Kaber Thrower keeps hitting the other Warjack in front of him, and the Kriel Warriors dissolve the Cryx infantry.

Stupid mistake on my part: the Warjack to my left gets up with one point of focus and then charges Grim. Grim successfully transfers and the Bomber plus the Nyss finish off the Warjack, but this cost me valuable resources in the center.

My Kriel Warriors swing in on eDeneghra and start to hit her really badly despite her high DEF and stacked Focus.  She survives barely with a few health points left when the last Kriel Warrior rolls an 8 instead of the required 9 to hit her.

eDeneghra kills the Kriel Warriors, the Warjack shoots the Bomber, and Grim himself moves up for a final last stand.

While Grim was still able to dodge the Warjack, the Warjack in combination with eDeneghra was too much.

Maintaining position

Just a small part of Turmabar's excellent Circle army.

So this saturday there will be the third installment of the Iron Cabal 3 or IC3, our local WM/H tournament in Wetzikon, Kanton Zürich, Switzerland. The IC started because of the initiative of Turambar who is a man of action and wanted to test the waters in the fall of 2011. A couple local players signed up, so did cb_crusader and I and we took Botond with us. It turned out Botond had to play, too, because one player didn't show up, so he got an ad hoc Cygnar force from Logan and did remarkably well.

Fast forward 18 months to the IC3 and things look different:

The current Swiss WM/H Top 10 - players are mostly from the area around the Lake of Zürich.

In the German part of Europe we use the T3 platform to keep track of tournament scores and players' performances. (it is similar to RankingsHQ) The picture above is a screenshot of the current national WM/H Top 10. cb_crusader and Botond are running on the two top spots followed by Turambar and me, but Kirin and McMortison are closely following up. Due to their performance at the OETC I actually expect Kirin and McMortison to pass me, but I am currently squeezing everything out of my Trollbloods lists for the IC3 to not let that happen.

However, just looking at my local gaming group won't be enough in the future anymore, this is the list of registrations for the upcoming IC3:

If you are sort of familiar with Swiss geography, you immediately notice that now people are signing up from various parts of the German speaking part of Switzerland. This will bring fresh blood to the tournament scene and new challenges. In other words, keeping my 4th rank will be even more difficult, so that's another motivation to ramp up my game.

In the end, our goal is to have an active national WM/H community we can use as a player base for the WTC qualifier event for 2013. Switzerland is a small community by definition, so we definitely wanna make sure we send the best of the best. :-)

Doing stupid things

With the next tournament around the corner, today's practice games were primarily a great opportunity to make stupid mistakes in order not to make them at the tournament...


Game 1 vs. Rahn

My list:

Madrak Ironhide, Thornwood Chieftain - WB:  6 

- Earthborn Dire Troll - PC: 10 

- Troll Axer - PC: 6

Janissa Stonetide - PC: 3 

Fell Caller Hero - PC: 3 

Krielstone Bearer & Stone Scribes - Leader & 3 Grunts: 3 

Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6

Short battle report in pictures:

Kriel Warriors and the Fell Caller move up on the flank to the right; their Prayer and the  Fell Call gives them MAT 9. To the left we have the beast brick with Janissa/Kriel Stone/pMadrak lifting the Trolls to DEF 16 / ARM 22.

The Trolls hack a bloody path through the Elves, but the Kriel Warriors have a hard time on the right with the Sentinels - I am still struggling heavily with these.

On pMadrak's feat turn, the EBDT tanks his way through the Sentinels to Rahn and attempts to hit him four times on a 6 - and fails each of those four To Hit rolls. Oh yes, I could have boosted, but you don't really boost when you need a 6, do you? Well, in return Rahn was so nice to shoot pMadrak, game over.

Game 2 vs. eSorscha

The purpose of this game was to find out if I am able to come up with an answer to the Winter Guard Death Star. Well, my big conclusion is "not really" since I felt like a newb with this list:

Grim Angus - WB:  6 

- Dire Troll Bomber - PC: 10 

- Troll Impaler - PC: 5 

Cylena Raefyll & Nyss Hunters - Cylena & 5 Grunts: 7 

Kriel Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 6 

- Kriel Warrior Standard & Piper - Standard & Piper 2 

- 1 1 Thrower's: 1

On the one hand, I have never played shooty Trollbloods before. On the other hand, Grim is a - let's say - unusual Trollbloods warlock to play with. And on the very effing third hand, I was over the points max because I put a max unit of Nyss Hunters onto the table rather than the min unit I had in my list!!! Fortunately, I had an opponent who really knew what he was doing and who also was an excellent sportsman, so this can be written off as a silly attempt at anything. I really need to do one thing: play, play, play.

The Cheat Hunters are walking on the left flank doing nothing since the pikemen are still out of range.  Everybody else is moving up the middle doing nothing either for the same reasons. 

Things start to get really bad. I forget to move half of my Kriel Warriors because I was only looking at those standing in front of my warbeasts. The Cheat Hunters continue to do nothing because now everyone is in a close combat. The Bomber throws bombs at eSorscha in the wood, but after we found out I was incorrect on the strength of a deviating template he does hardly any damage to her. I am loosing a terrible amount of time and - what's even worse - I don't know how I lost it as I am not aware of playing lazily. Basically I should have lost the game right here right now.

With 3 minutes on my clock left, my opponent sends me a gift by trying to assassinate Grim (at full fury) with eSorscha. Grim shoots his gun back at her, the Impaler charges in, end of story. Oh, the Cheat Hunters also managed to shoot the pikemen standard bearer.

So all in all this game was underwhelming simply for the amount of mistakes I made and the "victory" is not deserved in any way. Yet I consider it to be an important game for me as I sort of got an idea in real life what this list can do and what it can't.