Tournament Report: Som'er's End

Before I start, I am just going to apologize for the lack of pictures. Using a relatively new master for me meant I was pushed for time in all my games and basically I forgot.

Yesterday was my second tournament I have been to in Scotland, Livingston. Unfortunately the store, Worlds at War, is closing down, so the event was free so that people could spend there money on stock instead. It's a real shame, but having a quick chat with the owner you can see the reason why.

 So, anyway, I had already decided going into the day that I was going to play Ulix in all three games. I wanted to get some serious practice in with him. I will try and keep my review of the pig master to a minimum for now and do another blog post with that in tomorrow.

 My first game was against David H with some Gremlin on Gremlin action. The game was recon, a game I hadn't played at all with Ulix yet and not something that I think is his bag. I figured the piggapult, however, would help save the day. We both took deliver a message, which he did not reveal, and he took breakthrough (as it was flank deployment it made sense) and I took distract (which because pigs have to charge sometimes and I took corn husks to allow piglets to interact for a 0 in LoS).

 I was initially surprised that he took Som'er without Family Tree so he could summon Gremlins, but it seemed fair enough. We both delivered a message turn one because of reactivating pigs for the hog whisperer. I launched my piglets from the piggapult so that Som'er could not get out and then reactivated them, he used lenny to throw the hog whisperer, who then sooeyed the pigs forward and reactivated them so it could walk, charge and deliver a message. The following turn, I put distract on Som'er and the slop hauler with the piglets and he put breakthrough markers on my right flank. On my left flank I had to move Old Major, and thus also Ulix, into to maintain 2 quarters because I failed to kill piglets with a war pig. The next turn, using shot in the rear, my War Pig charged and killed: his Hog Whisperer, 2 piglets and my Bayou Gremlin, he then charged my hog whisperer but failed to hit. Unfortunately, I had plans for the Bayou Gremlin which obviously fell apart then. The slop hauler then used 'Watch this Pa' to blow himself up and deny me Distract, leaving the final score, because we ran out of time, 7-6 to Dave. It was a good game and very silly. Unfortunately, I felt hampered because I didn't own any more piglets to summon, so the piggpault was utterly useless after turn one, whilst he could have decided recon. Also I think Trixxie was possibly a bad choice because Gremlin Lure was not useful with all the terrain on the board.

The second game was against a guy called Alun who declared Guild. For this I took Assassinate and Plant Explosives, my opponent took Bodyguard and Vendetta with Nino vs the Piggapult. This game I got to do something I had wanted for ages, Nino used 'from the shaddows' to delpoy on the top of a large building in the centre, my wild boar then also used 'From the shaddows' to deploy in melee! Stealth pigs for the win! He managed with his first ap, however, to get just out of melee range to take a shot at a piggpult and score vendetta, but due to flipping the black joker on defence, my boar then devoured him for his troubles! I used the piggapult to launch some piglets into his half of the board, one in a safe place for stake a claim and the other engaged with his riflemen. In the first turn I also made a really stupid mistake, I postioned trixxie to plant my explosive marker next to three models and then Gremlin lured one of them away! It was the peacekeeper, which I think was worth getting out of the soon-to-be grind in the middle but I still can't believe I was so stupid! I decided to announce anyway and keep the 2 vp. The next turns, however, were basically just grind. Ulix and Old Major soaked up damage from lady J, but I positioned poorly and couldn't get Old major engaged with her so just killed his minions. The Wild Boar, forced to charge, took 6 falling damage as he charged the Lone Marshall. With all that going on, however, he didn't get anyone into my half so I safely scored stake a claim. That is basically the same tale for the rest of the game. Lady J killled Ulix and I only get her down to 5 wounds remaining when time was called. Lone Marshall killed the boar, but not quick enough to get stake a claim. His body guard still clutched to life to get him one point. So the final score was 5-2 to me. I think me main mistakes here was just positioning. I put Trixxie in the way and then didn't put Old Major in the right place afterward.

My final game, amazingly, was on table 2. This was because me and David had already played so we hat to swap opponents. This meant I was up against Joe in reckoning. despite originally planning to use Ulix in reckoning this was the game I was looking forward to the least. I took Assassinate and Plant Evidence and he took the same. He had take Collette, not normally a good assassinate target, but I had taken Sammy so had supposed that if I could deny her triggers then she would be easy to kill. I was absolutely thrashed in this game. Collette hung back and just prompted people to walk so they were in a better position to threaten later. Unfortunately, I did not get the card I needed, despite stoning, to summon a warpig and without much else to do I just attempted three times and failed. I used Trixxie in the second turn to Gremlin lure Langston out of range of anything, who just walked back. Lenny charged Cassandra, and failed to do anything. Collette prompted Joss into melee range of Gracie. Gracie walked into range of Lenny and attack Joss and failed. Bishop then dropped the arcanist fast upgrade, walked and charged Lenny. Because of a Red Joker, I won one of my Wp duels! But then he proceeded to black joker and still hit me! I think this is the biggest mistake of the game, possibly losing it for me, when I chose not to cheat. Lenny had to be alive to trigger both Ulix's and Gracies Triggers. He didn't die at this point, but when Cassy charged, I could not cheat high enough to keep him alive. Old Major had charged Joss by this point, but I don't think he had done much damage and I had decided to was basically all or nothing. With three attacks from Ulix, stoning twice for the suit, I made both Gracie and Old Major attack Joss 3 times each but to no avail. I only managed to get him down to his hard to kill. He then promptly killed Gracie and his reactivate severely damaged Old Major also. Basically, from there, the game was over. A last ditched summon from Ulix made a War Pig, but it could not cope with everything he had left. I had put down a token scheme marker. Joe won 8-1.

To be expected I dropped along way after that crushing defeat, leaving my 3 from bottom. I did have a great time though and played some really nice friendly people. You can see the results from this tournament on the Wyrd Forum page. Big thanks to all my opponents and also for David Golden for driving us up, and also Paul for putting up with rants on the way up on down!

Look out for the blog post tomorrow!