Unpacking the 2012 Wargames Con

Well, I finally managed to unpack all the stuff brought home from Wargames Con, almost one month after returning home. The 2012 WGC wasn't that much of a swag fest and buying frenzy, but it still takes time to neatly tuck everything away. I am especially proud now of my army case that shows the achievements of a proud table top general. Hey, I lost almost all my games, but I had a great time doing it and my case will always remind me of the fun I had. :-)

I also took the time to quickly glue the Ork and Space Marine in my swag bag from Spikey Bits plus the Stormclad's banner that keeps falling off for a (very) quick diorama. Yes, I don't know what this diorama's point is, but I somehow found it funny.

How to get the Stormwall safely across the ocean

The top layer of my Battle Foam holding the infantry models.

Whenever I go to a Warmachine tournament in Europe people keep asking me about my P.A.C.K. Air from Battle Foam. Yes, they are rather expensive compared to other products and yes, models still break, but ever since I had Battle Foam this has been reduced to a minimum. Every once in a while a model's arm may fall off, but that's nothing that can't be fixed with super glue in a couple seconds.

The only time I had several models break was when I flew to Texas for Wargames Con. I had only two foam trays in my P.A.C.K. Air to fill the remaining space with my new custom cut foam trays for my Cygnar/Trollbloods armies. I filled the remaining space with clothes figuring that would be soft padding and a filler enough for a safe transport. What I didn't realize, however, was that the clothes didn't exercise enough pressure onto the trays so about half of the models fell out. Although they were still fairly well padded by the clothes, they bumped into each other so paint was chipped off and several limps had to be glued back together once I had arrived in Texas.

Good thing I took my trusted superglue and minimal modeling equipment to Texas.

To make a long story short - in my eyes, Battle Foam is worth the purchase, you just really want to fill the entire bag with foam to prevent anything from falling out of anywhere. Thinking about taking other things than minis and foam in your Battle Foam bag for the weekend trip to the tournament because it's convenient? I suggest you take another bag instead.

The bottom layer with a custom cut for my Warjacks/Warbeasts plus  a cube for the Stormwall and the War Wagon.

Currently I am really excited about the new Stormwall foam tray as the Stormwall perfectly sits in its tray. The fit is firm and snugly so it doesn't go anywhere even if the case is being bumped. This kind of safety comes at a price, though, because one has to be careful not to exercise too much pressure onto the model when putting it into or taking it out of its tray. When pushing the Stormwall into its tray, I suggest to push it at the base with your stretched fingers. When taking it out of its tray, I suggest you gently lift it with a finger below its perineum. If necessary, wiggle the model carefully as you softly pull it out. The worst thing you could do is to just grab it by its shoulders and pull it out.

One thing I really like about the new Stormwall foam tray is how it lets you pluck part of the foam so it perfectly fits its arm positions. Here I even plucked so more so that its right shoulder canon doesn't rub with the foam either.

I am not affiliated with Battle Foam at all, I am just a happy customer. Since Battle Foam still mostly is a US company geared to the US market, Wargames Con is a great opportunity for me to buy their products. However, I suggest you advance order their stuff because they only have a very limited supply and it's flying off their shelves.

The Battle Foam stand at the 2012 Wargames Con.

This year they announced their presence at the Wargames Con and brought way more stuff, but certain things were either not available (foam toppers? they had no foam toppers - bought them at the FLGS instead) or only in limited quantities (they only had one display tray for WM/H - if I had bought it, they'd have had to keep it for the remainder of the Con to show it to other customers). An important point also is that the Wargames Con substantially grew in size since last year, but I hope Romeo ships the necessary quantities of products to the 2013 Wargames Con. After all, he'd be a fool not to.

Conquest vs. Stormwall on BoLS

BoLS just posted a great video battle report today where you can see Privateer Press' Lyle Lowery play BoLS' Relasine as they both hit the table with the Conquest and the Stormwall. I especially like Relasine's paint job on the Stormwall, he did a great job there. However, he also did a great job on the infantry; in the video it looks as if his Black 13 merely have a black basecoat, but if you get to see them up close you get to see that they actually have some really nice layerings and shadings.

Wargames Con Warmachine Review

left to right: Lyle Lowery, me and Will Hungerford.

Looking back at how the WM/H games at Wargames Con were run and managed I have to say it's the best WM/H event I attended so far, although I have some issues that I am not totally happy about.

For the readers not familiar with Wargames Con I guess I should clarify a couple things first (or at least that's the way I understood them to be):

• The Bell of Lost Souls crew was responsible for the overall event, e.g. registration.
• The WM/H tournaments inside Wargames Con were run by the Texas Renegades. They were responsinble for the judging, timing of the games, and giving away the prizes.
• The people from Privateer Press (Lyle and Will) were responsible for the demo games with great support from the local Press Gangers.

Angel getting a demo game from Steven.

Those demo tables were really nifty and fun to play on.

Now with that being said, here is the list of things I really liked:

1. Registration was painless and the judges carefully checked all lists.
2. The judges did an excellent job supporting the players whenever a question concerning the rules or the scenarios arose. In the important tournaments/games that were about qualifications and winning the prizes they also actively patrolled the tables just to watch how everything's going.
3. Everything was calm, speedy, and efficient, which can basically be sourced back to the quality of the WM/H rulebook and the Steamroller rule set. The publication of the rules in the WWW and the use of chess clocks (we were allowed to use Privateer Press' very own) made a very smooth tournament. In the WM/H community we basically shook our heads when we observed how the 40K judges had to work their butts off and frenetically call the time and Dice Down over the microphone in order to manage the 40K events.
4. It was great to have representatives of Privateer Press on site, although this meant they had to work on the weekend. It's just great to talk to them directly and hear their views on things and is a sign of how well rooted in the community Privateer Press is. It's greatly appreciated.
5. As you could guess from my pictures above, the demo games were truckloads of fun - and everyone was even happier when they got to take home a free starterbox. I got myself the Trollbloods starterbox to start building a new Trollbloods army next to my Cygnar army. That way I have pretty much the entire Privateer Press universe covered and its initial boost with the free starterbox is greatly appreciated.

There is one issue where I see room for improvement, though, and I guess that's mostly based on the decisions by the Texas Renegades: the time table. Now I understand that running a tournament isn't easy and I am not saying that I could do it better. I also understand that the time tables published on the Wargames Con website in the WM/H rule packs may be subject to change. However, there were still incidents that I was not entirely happy with:

1. As I wrote earlier, I missed my third game during the Classic Hardcore because I thought it was lunch break. The judges basically canceled lunch break because they wanted to move on with the tournament as fewer players than expected showed up and only one more game may have been needed to determine a winner. This tournament was announced as a six rounds event, but effectively played were only four.
2. On the second day/Saturday I had only 20min for a lunch break as the schedule was sped up again.  This tournament was announced as a four rounds event, but effectively played were only three.
3. On the third day/Sunday, the Flanks For Everything tournament didn't start until 10:30 a.m. although the published times on the Wargames Con website said it starts at 09:00 a.m. However, once again only three out of four games were played again.

Now I know this is complaining at a very high level. I also know that players who choose to drop out after they have lost one or two games in the Swiss system are an issue. I also understand this may be an issue of cultural differences because locally the focus is on determining qualifiers and winners and not necessarily play out the entire time/game schedule. However, I have to say this still left a somewhat unhappy taste in my mouth and the reactions from some of my fellow players showed me that they had similar feelings, too. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe for most people the motivation to attend a tournament is to get in games and if they can get a prize on top of that, then even the better. However, they are basically there to play games. Cutting the games schedule definitely has its advantages and I have to admit, too, that I was glad when we could end a tournament early and relax. However, if I could pick the options I would still rather have a tournament with more breaks and all games played simply because I want to do the whole thing - after all that's what we're here for, right?

Wargames Con - Flanks For Everything

Well, here's my report for my last games on Sunday of Wargames Con. For Warmachine, Sunday was a split as the top players played their Masters and those less fortunate played their own Flanks For Everything (35pts, all scenarios with reserves). As it was appropriate for the event I sure did wear my new Privateer Press bandana. ^^

Will Pagani briefing the players for the Masters.

Game 1 vs. Roger Yohn (Retribution)

This game lastet only seven minutes in total. Roger basically rushed his Myrmidons forward and they shot eNemo who hadn't even left his deployment zone. From André Suwanda I know that I have to be really careful with Mage Hunters and their ranged attacks, so I found myself in a wrong sense of ( at least temporary) security when Roger had his Mage Hunters in reserve. He basically taught me that Myrmidons are excellent marksmen as well.

Game 2 vs. Nikki Andraka (Circle, pKrueger)

In this game I got to play one of the two female players in the tournament so this was probably my most charming defeat ever. ^^

My army moved into its first line of defense, Nikki moved her army forward, too, and also did the trick with the Shifting Stones that I knew already.

At the end of my second turn, my army had moved far enough to at least contest the various objectives and either be charged or charge in the next turn.

Also my reserves arrived from the east supporting my right flank. On the turn of their arrival they could not really shoot anything, but on the other hand they were also more or less save behind this building.

On her turn, Nikki moved forward and was mostly concerned with my Fireflies on the flanks. I didn't care because as long as the Fireflies were alive, I could still use them for my Triangulation.

On my turn, my Thunderhead moved forward and eradicated the druids with his Energy Pulse. Arlan Strangewayes moved into B2B with the Stormclad and repaired it so I was pretty positive about that close combat. My Gun Mages on the right flank moved in the hope to get a shot at the units in Nikki's backfield, but their shots still fell short. I also secretly hoped I may be able to throw the Woldwarden at Krueger in my next turn with my Thunderhead.

Well, unfortunately here it was over already. Nikki walked Krueger and the Woldwarden forward and showed me that they both have strong ranged attacks, too.

I guess after the game with Nikki it is very evident that I need to protect my Warcasters more. All my games during Wargames Con I lost because of casterkills (except two), so I need to change something about that. However, I generally don't feel like I am doing too much risky or offensive stuff, e.g. in this game I considered eNemo to be savely lagging behind. With a command range of 14" - although it is a rather comfortable one - I also don't want him to lag too much behind so he can still allocate focus to the Fireflies. Well, maybe I should run the Fireflies just closer to the center.

Game 3 vs. John Booher (Cygnar, Kara Sloan)

John played a classic Kara Sloan list that was filled with Mercenary Pirates for buffed shooting. In this game I really got to feel how (literally) tough pirates can be. A single model isn't very strong per se, but in a game where saving rolls still are the exception, Tough rolls for every infantry model make a difference and give them much more staying power.

Job won the dice roll, decided to go first, set up most of his army in advanced deployment and rushed them forward. As it turned out later, this was going to be decisive. My army moved to its first line of defense.

Our armies got stuck in close combat just south of the mission objectives (an imaginary 6" diameter measured from the two white circles). The battle turned into a war of slow attrition at the center line where both he and I were equally successful, but John started to score on the mission objective to the west.

Well, this picture looks pretty much the same except that John and I have less infantry. At this point John scored enough points and won the game based on mission objectives. :-)

Wargames Con - Steam Roller Qualifier

Well, the picture above pretty much says it all. ^^ Things started to go wrong already at registration when the judge looked through my list and asked me where my 10 points of reinforcements were. I hadn't planned any and just enlarged my collection to be able to play two different 50pts lists with character restrictions. I guess this is a cultural difference because in Switzerland/Germany the TO always explicitely announces when Reserves are being played and how many points you need for that. Here in Texas they just play Steamroller and you are supposed to know the rules well enough to figure out what consequences that has.
Either way, I had a leftover Hammersmith and Arlan Strangewayes, so that was reinforcements enough for one list and for the other a judge was nice enough to lend me his Gorman di Wulfe model. However, if you are somewhat into Cygnar you immediately notice how silly it is to have a Hammersmith (4" movement per turn) come from reserve.

Will Pagani explaining the chess clock - at least I was familiar with that. ^^

Game 1 vs. Hunter Dominque (Minions, Barnabas)

Hunter is from Louisiana and he brought a gator list with tons of crocs - now THIS promised to be a lot of fun. I have never played Minions before, so I had hardly any clue what he was going to do and decided to stick to my "standard program". To make a long story short: Hunter basically dominated me with movement so he was able to pick pretty much all the fights and not me. He did this by casting swamps right in front of his army every turn that he could easily pass through but that were difficult terrain for me. When my charge range of 8" is reduced to 4" there is only so much I can do.

This is how we set up our armies. The rings are the two initial swamps.

My army moves up to the first line of defense.

My army moves forward to the second line of defense and is dominating now the objective area, but Hunter's gators on the right side of the picture are also inside it with a toe. Barnabas pops his feat and knocks down my front line of Warjacks and Stormblades.

On my left flank, some crocs appear that have some flanking special rule that allows them to flank from reserve even if the scenario doesn't include it. They didn't appear too powerful to me, but by their number they were strong enough to finally take down my Firefly. With the center of my defense gone, my only assest left were the Thunderhead plus the Triangulation between my Stormcallers and the Fireflies. Unfortunately, when it came to do the Triangulation, both Stormcallers failed their skill check. 

Once my defense was completely dissolved, the Swamp Horror threw the Wrastler forward and he charged eHaley. End of story.

Game 2 vs. Derek Crass (Protectorate, pSeverius)

Well, another excellent game and if there were a price for sportsmanship, Derek would definitely get it from me. (this is not to say the other players weren't good sportsmen, they were all very good, it's just that Derek is an especially good sportsman!)

We set up and I run forward. Eiryss is sticking around the brown building to the right.

The Protectorate moves everything forward, too...

...and without me noting it first, Nicia moves on the left side into pEiryss and will actually kill her in the subsequent turn. I will hold the Colorblind Crusader personally responsible for me falling for this trick. ^^

The center of the game gets literally heated with the domination of the battle engine. Luckily I do really good dice rolls when it comes to test on the conitnuous effects and they all get extinct on a 1 or 2.

With the Stormcald gone, eCaine pops his feat and kills off the battle engine plus 2 additional infantry modells he has shots left for.

However, now the attrition really sets in and I have to give up the center while Nicia kills off my Gun Mages to the right with hit 'n run tactics. I have no means anymore to prevent Derek from taking the mission objective slightly to the right of the center of this picture.

The game ends when this Warjack shoots eCaine. pSeverius that can be seen in the background actually did stay in the background for the entire game. He didn't even need to pop his feat that caused so much chagrin on the previous day.

Game 3 vs. Colin Hill (Circle, pBaldur)

Colin is from Australia so we joked around saying that this is the international game and that we were basically supposed to be at the top table. ^^ Colin picked up WM/H in March so he introduced himself pretty much as a newbie - a very friendly, fun, and easy-going newbie I have to say - yet a newbie with a clear concept on what he was going to do. Of course he beat me. ^^

We set up and I moved forward. Please note the Shifting Stones in the background. I already knew them from Robert Deola, but Colin didn't take one unit of them, he took two so he had two intersecting trinagles. This was the key to victory because one trinagle could teleport a Shifting Stone from the 2nd trinagle as needed and then the newly formed trinagle could teleport a Warbeast pretty much anywhere. When I played Robert Deola so far I was also lucky enough that I never had to fight his Druids inside the woods - now against Colin I was about to learn what this means!

Here things looked still sort of good because my lines were intact. However, I couldn't capitalize on it because it was pBaldur's feat turn and everything within his control area was difficult terrain. For example my Stormblades that attempted to charge the Warbeast in the center just failed by 1 or 2mm to get into melee range.

Over the next turn, Colins Warbeasts dissolved my line of defense and then everything in his army that could shoot shot eHaley. RIP.

Looking back at this tournament I have mixed feelings. On the one hand I really enjoyed it because I had great people to play with. On the other hand it's kinda bitter because I thought I am used to play against Protectorate and Circle, but the defeats were just as devastating as in the game against the unknown crocs. In other words, my learning curve isn't steep enough. On the other hand, I never had problems handling the clock, actually even in Friday's Classic Hardcore the clock didn't really mean a threat to me. I guess what I currently need in my gaming group is not practicing with the clock to get faster, but a consistent list that I know by heart and that I am deeply familiar with. I have sort of reached this level with eCaine, but his lists are ever changing because basically I just built my army around him based on the looks of the models. eHaley was a complete fail because I simply lack the experience to make her work, so I guess she's gonna be shelved again.

When I start to play Trollbloods, the first thing I do is building lists meant to be competitive and then it's just a matter of going back into the trenches and accumulate more experience on how they perform against the various armies.

Wargames Con - Classic Hardcore

Well, the first day of wargaming is officially over with the winners of the Warmachine/Hordes Classic Hardcore tournament. For the Classic Hardcore you basically had to bring a 50pts list with all miniatures in your army painted and there was a 7min turn limit. Here is a brief rundown of my games.

Game 1 vs. Jordan Braun (Cryx - Mortenebra)

Well, this was my first game ever against Cryx so I was in for a ride.

We set up everything in a pretty standard way with Jordan's Deathjack in front. 

Jordan went first and ran pretty much everything forward. 

Well, I wasn't lagging behind and ran everything forward, too. 

At the end of my turn when I was done shooting, I did some minor damage to the Cryx on my right flank. Ryan was also able to get her AOE off so I considered my right flank to be secure at least for a while. eCaine swung to the left so he wouldn't have to walk through the wood und put pressure on Jordan's warcaster on the left flank.

The rest of the story is easily told: in his next turn, the Deathjack charged the Gun Mage, killed him, used some magic ability to close in towards eCaine and killed him as well.

Jordan was both an excellent and a fun player just like any other I met that day. My conclusion of this game is that you shouldn't run Caine in the second row if I don't know exactly what my opponent can do, so it's better to have him in the third row or even more in the back. However, since Classic Hardcore also used the Killbox extra rule, having eCaine hang too much in the back was not an option either.

Game 2 vs. Lyle Lowery (Khador - Butcher)

Originally I was supposed to play against Will Pagani, a guy with accomplishments such as Lock 'n Load master champion. He is another absolutely great guy though (I wonder where the stereotype comes from that WM/H players are less friendly and more intense, I yet have to meet one) and he tried to comfort me by saying he brough his fun list. However, as Will was just a filler to get an even number of players, it was decided that he had to do some judging and his Butcher list was played by Lyle Lowery, the Marketing Manager of Privateer Press. Now the marketing manager is always the guy in the company who doesn't really have a clue about the products but a great ego to sell them to anybody, right? Well, not so Lyle Lowery. He grasped the list immediately, did really well at handling that many models in 7min, and he just crunched numbers and rules in his head at an enormeous speed - while being a very friendly and social player at the same time, too. Truly, if your company has a guy with these congnitive and social skill as a manager, your company did something right. Well, on to the game:

I ran everything forward, Lyle was busy doing the same with his infantry. 

I didn't pay enough attention to the Widowmakers as their templates started to kill my Gun Mages on my right flank...

...although they even were in cover. I don't know anymore what element of stupidity even made me eCaine there. On the left flank, Greygore Boomhowler & Co. (with the 4+ Tough Fellcall and Heightened Reflexes) were about to enter close combat with the Nyss Hunters that took pretty much the rest of the game so we had almost a stalemate there.

Back in his turn, Lyle took the opportunity to move his Widowmakers even closer and shoot eCaine. However, by some miracle only Rheinhold got killed, Caine didn't take a scratch due to his high camped focus and unlucky rolls on Lyle's part.

In my next turn, eCaine tasted blood and revenge and instead of running, he moved into cover and started to gun down the Winterguards - every single one of them.

However, slowly but surely Khador's mighty infantry started to kill my Warjacks and infantry in the center of the field while Greygore Boomhowler & Co. slowly started to loose the attrition war, too. Caine decided to stay where he was and make a stand there.

Butcher moved everything he had accross the field towards Caine... 

...but when it was Caine's turn to shoot again, he wasn't waiting to keep his bullets for a better day either. At this point, Will Pagani yelled "Dice down!"

So this was a weird and intense game where infantry just died in hordes - and all this with a 7min time limit! Lyle was awesome to play with, as mentioned above, and I was lucky to get a tie after I positioned eCaine so stupidly. Had the game gone on for one or two more rounds, Butcher would have killed Caine, but I guess this was a well deserved draw for both of us. However, since this was Classic Hardcore, the draw meant that we both lost automatically. ^^

Game 3 - bye

Well, this was my first game for the simple reason that it didn't happen. According to the table we were supposed to have the lunch break, but the judges decided to move the time table forward and continue the game. There were not as many players as expected so just one additional game could determine the overall winner. Well, I had wandered away from the tables to get lunch and failed to hear their annoucement over the loudspeakers when they were looking for me, so the games started without me. I wasn't upset that this meant an automatic loss for me, I was just sad that I missed an opportunity for another game.

Game 4 vs. Austin Madert (Protectorate - pSeverius)

Well, what's to say about this game? Austin is an excellent Menoth player and I did have my typical problems with that faction as I lacked a concept to deal with that much infantry and Warjacks at the same time. Also Severius feat that let me go for one round without focus was devastating, so my army simply dissolved faster than Austin's.

We set up everything...

...everybody ran forward...

...until we clashed on a hill in front of Austin's deployment zone. 

Severious was pulling to the left...

...so eCaine followed in hopes of flanking everything on the left and pull off an assassination on Severius. However, I failed to realize that the Warjack to the left was an arcnode so in his final turn (unfortunately no picture) Austin simply advanced his Warjack and channeled Severius' spell against Caine. Game over.

After the game, Austin and I talked the game through and he was so nice enough to help me on where I could have done things better. For one part he was afraid in this situation that eEiryss (barely seen behind the house on the left) would attack his Warjacks. Since this was Classic Hardcore asking for caster kills, I wanted her to flank on the left and go for the caster instead, just like I attempted later with Caine, too. I guess one thing I should really start to do is having Eiryss run against Warjacks more often if the opportunity arises and not be so totally focused on the enemy caster.

Well, this is it for day one. :-) I still have to add the names of the winners, but this piece of information will either be added here or you can get it from the BoLS site.