WTC 2016 - Team Bofors (battles 12-17)

Hello,

the WTC has come and gone. What I focused all my warmachine-ing on for approximately 18 months has passed and I'm not too surprisingly feeling a little burnt out. The first 12 months I played Legion of Everblight for 8-9 of them, and then Cygnar 3-4. Those were the months I had to continuously place well and farm ranking points to get drafted for the team (I also had to hope we would wind up getting a third team, otherwise I had no shot), and then 6 months of preparation.

Getting chosen to represent Sweden, even though on the least significant third team, was at the time definitely my biggest accomplishment in Warmachine. I had won a couple of small tournaments, placed top 5 on bigger ones and then, finally, this. Following the decision, with me getting in as the lowest ranked member of the teams, I was anxious to prove my worth. I feel like I did that in the following months, both at tournaments and WTC practice weekends. Going into the WTC I felt good about my chances, but I did wish my team had coordinated our lists a little better. Some teams really had ball-breaking set ups - we just had 5 solid list pairs. 

This is an example of what Bofors, the company we're named after, makes. I think. I just googled.

Anyway, I'll type my lists again. They're unchanged for a long time now.

Haley2
- Stormwall
- Thorn
- Ironclad
- Squire
Min Storm Lances
Ragman
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Journeyman Warcaster
- Firefly

Haley3
- Thorn
- Grenadier
- Grenadier
- Ironclad
Max Trenchers
Max Storm Lances
Ragman
Rhupert
Journeyman Warcaster
- Charger

I spend a lot of time chatting about Cygnar and warmachine with 1) the Swedish teams and 2) a group of Cygnar players containing Jarle Svendsrud and Olov Winroth (and more). I mention those two in particular because the three of us settled for identical list pairs. 

The rest of my team was Torbjörn with Legion (Vayl2/Absylonia2), Ola with Retribution (Issyria/Vyros2), Niklas with Trollbloods (Madrak2/Borka1), and Gustav with Protectorate (Kreoss3/Harbinger). Torbjörn had the most experience from WTC and took care of our matching process, even though he wasn't formally the captain. Torbjörn did an AMAZING job with our pairings and most often got us the best possible pairings. 

Off I went to Amsterdam (after briefly celebrating my girlfriend's birthday the Friday I left) and on to the venue. Arriving there I was honestly rather disappointed: no wifi, no towels, the huts the players got weren't close to one another. I went on being disappointed, with bad food (especially lunch), expensive beer and too densely packed gaming area. I've been able to gather from more experienced WTC-goers that as far as organisation and venue went, this was far from the best one.

Nevertheless, I was hyped as FUCK to get playing. I decide to take no pictures during the event, I want to focus solely on playing. I'll try to get some other pictures in here just to break the monotony of text.

ROUND 1

We get Wales Dant as our first round, which we honestly were quite relieved by. No offense meant to Wales, but I think they would agree they're not one of the favourites for the tournament. They did however give us really good looking dice! Black with gold pips, and a Welsh Dragon for the 6. Really cool!

Torbjörn fixed the pairings, and I got to play versus Terry Slade, captain and Legion player. He had Vayl2 and something else, so we played Haley3 vs Vayl2. 

Vayl2
- Typhon
- Ravagore
- Seraph
- Nephilim Bolt Thrower
2 Strider Deathstalkers
2 Shepherds
Wrong Eye & Snapjaw
Hellmouth
Swamp Gobbers

This is a picture of my own Vayl2, from back when I was a wee dragonspawn.

The scenario was incursion. The only thing important in this game is keeping Prime Haley safely tucked away behind Storm Lances and terrain, and then grind from there. As long as you don't die, there's no way you can lose the attrition (unless maybe if he gets both echoes one turn, then he might have a shot I guess). I remember Wrongeye failed killing a storm lance or something (which did have flux so shit happens) and dying in return. 

In the end, Terry clocked out after failing an assassination run (which honestly wasn't that bad a chance, like 30-35 % I think, I should've played more defensively). I can't remember the scenario score, but I believe we were around 3-3 or something at the time. 

The rest of the team win as well, so we start the tournament off 5-0 and feeling great. Sweden Nobel actually won 5-0 versus Wales Crafanc too so Sweden is 10-0 versus Wales after round 1. 

ROUND 2

Round 1 did give us some delicious upsets! TWO USA teams are knocked out already! And the last one just barely won 3-2 versus Norway's second team. Us europeans are probably a bit too full of glee here; USA gets an undeserved amount of people cheering for their opponents. Anyway, upsets are fun I guess.

Round 2 we get paired up against one of the teams which knocked a USA team out: Denmark Jotunheim. Jotunheim means Giant's Home, pointing towards a Viking past. The Norwegians and Swedes generally find it amusing when Danes try to be Vikings, generally viewing our cousins to the South as soft weaklings. And the name has got nothing on BOFORS anyway.

I think it was Norwegian Vikings who discovered America. It might've been Danish ones, but I'd deny that vehemently.

Torbjörn again does his magic and I get paired versus Protectorate of Menoth, piloted by Simon Sörenssen (I can't make the magic happen, he gets a Swedish Ö rather than a Danish). We play Haley2 versus Severius2. 

Severius2
- Blessing of Vengeance
- Reckoner
- Vanquisher
- Repenter
- Devout
Vassal of Menoth
Wrack
Rhupert 
Max Temple Flameguard with UA
Max Choir of Menoth
Rhoven & C:o.

Haley2 isn't my comfort caster, but she's very good into Protectorate so I feel I should be fine anyway. The scenario is Recon. I get to go first and my plan is to advance as far as I can turn 1, turn 2 I'll feat and get something done, and then I'll win over the next couple of turns. He has to sing Passage every turn so I can get shooting. In theory at least. I practice, I do more damage swinging my mighty fists.

This is pretty much what happens as well. Simon's Flameguard are surprisingly resilient, binding up my storm lances as well as the Ironclad for a significant part of the game. I try scoring turn 3 but I believe I fail to clear the last two Flameguard, and do not score until turn 4 instead. What happens meanwhile though is pure beauty. 

Turn 2 I get Thorn going very far, and he disrupts Blessing of Vengeance and the Reckoner, while staying in melee afterwards. Protected by feat, all he gets damaged in return is the Reckoner whacking him once (rolling high, sadly). Turn 2 the Stormwall has only advanced and tried shooting his Flameguard and warjacks a bit, but turn 3 he crashes into the Vanquisher, Repenter and Devout, killing the heavy and half a light with the help of Ragman. Thorn fucks up Blessing and the Reckoner again.

Overpowered little fucker, this one.

Turn 4 is when I score 1 point, and I believe Thorn finally dies. By now attrition is solidly mine though. I fuck up once here, almost losing me the game, by getting a bit greedy. Until now, I've played Haley behind the smoke provided by my Fuel Cache. Now, I decide I want TA on the Ironclad before it goes in and kills the Reckoner, so I advance into the cloud. The ironclad kills the Reckoner with 2 attacks to spare (TWO). All Simon has left are some shit models and Severius, and his arc node. He get's two Hexblasts into me. First one hits and does FUCKING 16 damage before focus camp. Luckily I camp 2, so I drop that down to 11. Simon then needs a boosted 10 for the game, but doesn't get it, after which I kill the damn priest. 

So that's a nice lesson in how to almost give away a game. Team wins 4-1 I think, so we're onto round 3 undefeated.

ROUND 3

In round 3, we're starting to get down the very few teams left which you consider good draws. We get the worst possible, Australia Echidna.

I get paired versus Tom Guan of Internet Fame, playing Wurmwood. Olov Winroth has played Haley3 into the Tree a couple of times with good results, so I was going to try to repeat his success.

Wurmwood
- Cassius
- Pureblood
- Megalith
Wolf Lord Morraig
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Hutchuck, Ogrun Bounty Hunter
2 Shifting Stones
2 Sentry Stones
2 Max Wolves of Orboros with UA
Swamp Gobbers

Sadly, the scenario being Outlast isn't great for me, neither is Tom being a much stronger player than I am.

As you probably can tell from my defeataist attitude, I lost this round. I get to go first but get too scared of Cassius running into my cloudwall and arcing Hellmouths before getting ported back so I advance far too cowardly turn 2. Tom answers by clearing a zone and dominating while feating. With my entire list covered by a fucking forest, I get next to nothing done in my turn, and contest the zones best I can while maintaining a defensive position for Prime Haley. It's not enough, and since I underestimated how far he could get Morraig I not only have Tom dominate one zone, he controls the other one for an easy 5-0 scenario win. 

Losing versus a great player (in the winning team; Australia Echidna went on to take the entire tournament) isn't shameful in itself, I am however disappointed in HOW I lost. I played badly and didn't do myself or my team justice.

Apparently, this is an echidna.

Making matters worse, we lose the round 4-1. Australia Echidna has knocked out Sweden Dynamite and Sweden Bofors in two consecutive rounds, establishing themselves as Swede Slayers par excellence. I got the feeling that parts of the team were annoyed with Dylan for losing his game, haha. 14-1 after day 1 is apparently not good enough for Australia!

Still, 2-1 and losing to the eventual winners is an okay record for day 1.

The evening was spent hanging out with mostly the other Swedes, sadly, but I did get to talk to a couple of Americans and others as well.

ROUND 4

In round 4 we got paired up versus Belgium Victorious Secret. They had somehow gotten unlucky enough to be missing their television from their bungalow, with no idea how that had happened. Apparently it wasn't a drunken thing either, so who knows. For 10 minutes they were missing their 5th player as well, so we joked that he probably had taken off with the TV.

I got matched up versus Benoit van Lee (henceforth to be known as BVL), and we played Haley2 versus Magnus2. The scenario was Extraction.

Magnus2
- Sylys
- 2 Manglers
- Renegade
- Gallant
Kell Bailoch
Harlan Versh
Alten Ashley
Max Idrians with UA
Lady Aiyana & Master Holt

Extraction is a funny scenario, in that the flags are controlled and dominated for 1. As it turned out, Benoit wasn't aware of this fact, which would become apparent.

My game plan for this game was pretty simple - in the end Haley2 plays a similar game to Magnus2, but better, and with better stuff. His only edge is his ability to pump damage all the way up. Considering I shoot better than him I decided I could work for a turn or two to soften him up before going in for the kill, while controlling his warjacks meanwhile. Benoit has apparently faced Haley2 before so he shoots away his Renegade's super rocket shot turn 1 so I can't do fun Domination things with it.

I fucked up big time turn 2 though. I dared a shot at a Bullet Dodger Gallant, which wasn't the fuck up since I hit and did some damage, but I looked at the table and decided that my stormwall was fine where she was - she was within threat range of Gallant BUT I was sure an obstruction blocked Gallant's charge lane so he couldn't get there anyway.

Come BVL:s turn, he said "I think I have a charge lane here". I tilt my head and lean to the side, and yeah he definitely has one. HUGE fucking mistake. So Gallant goes into the Stormwall doing roughly half its boxes since Kiss of Lyliss was out of range. SHIT. 

After that I had to turn on my A game, which I luckily did. I boxed in Gallant with a couple of Storm Lances, and punched him down. Bad trade for a Stormwall, since HARLAN VERSH shot the other side down the turn after with some spell help, but you take what you can get. Eventually Benoit shifts to the flag on my right and starts scoring, but here's where the dominating for 1 comes in and it takes longer than he thought. Even though I gave away the stormwall I sort of take attrition here with the Ironclad and Thorn doing major work. We're at 3-3 or 4-3 or something and Benoit has a Mangler, Kell and Magnus left. 

The Mangler downs my objective, and Magnus needs to kill the journeyman warcaster who's the only model contesting. Having set up for this contest the turn before I had actually moved AS to junior herself, so even though he clocked out Junior would've lived through Kell and Magnus' spray attack anyway. 

Haley: Just run up there and tank through all they've got. You can even Arcane Shield yourself!

June(ior): ... I'm not sure about this, Major.

So even though I almost gave away my Stormwall completely unnecessarily, the match up was enough in my favour (and with good play on my part) that I could win it in the end anyway. 

ROUND 5

Round 5 we get USA White. Until round 4 they were the last undefeated USA team, but they had to play Sweden Nobel, our best team, so they were now obviously 3-1 like we were. 

I get matched versus Michael Ireland with Retribution. We wind up playing Haley3 versus Helynna. Normally I'm not happy about Retribution, but Michael runs Helynna (who I think isn't that great) and Ossyan WITHOUT strike force commander. Smoke wall is great, then.

Magister Helynna
- Sylys
- Chimera
- Discordia
- 3 Manticore
2 Arcanists
Lys Healer
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Max Sentinels with UA and 1 Soulless.

I'll not go into much detail for this game. I get a good match up, Haley3 into Helynna, and even though his covering fires fuck with my cloudwall a fair bit, I get to kill all his sentinels turn 3 and all I need to do here is not give him an easy assassination and I will win this game eventually. There's no way his 4 heavies can grind through the Temporal Flux-enhanced monstrosity that is my list. I even killbox myself on accident, and I still feel like the game was mine to lose at that point.

So what I do is form a fucking incomplete fucking cloudwall where the big hole is DIRECTLY in front of Prime Haley. He throws a god damn Discordia onto Prime, and shoots her to death.

I'm fucking pissed at myself for such an idiotic mistake. I get a good match up, I'm allowed to take his Sentinels since he doesn't feat turn 3, and I'm on a course towards winning in 5-6 more safe turns. I'm still upset thinking about this fucking game.

If by chance Michael winds up reading this, I probably acted like a douchebag after this game and I'm very sorry for being a less than ideal opponent. 

My sorry story aside, the team saves my ass. We take down USA White 3-2 and I can be a little less upset. At this point we're 4-1 and have reached the goal we set for ourselves, a 4-2 record or better. Honestly we might've gotten TOO content here.

ROUND 6

Luckily that might not have mattered much. We get paired versus Canada Goose, which is the last team we want to face in this bracket. Our match ups are simply TERRIBLE versus their lists. 

I get into Legion piloted by Chris Orr. He's got Lylyth3 and Kallus, so I know it's going to be Lylyth3. Lylyth3 wins versus Cygnar by killing the caster I've found, and I think I've got a better shot at keeping Haley3 safe than Haley2. In hindsight, after discussing this game with Jarle and Olov, I think I picked the wrong list, but such is life.

Lylyth3
- Succubus
- Naga Nightlurker
- Typhon
- Nephilim Bolt Thrower
- Carnivean
- Seraph
3 Shepherds
2 Forsaken
Striders with UA

Chris had tooled his list a little extra versus Cygnar with the Strider Scouts, but even then the long game is in my favour. This game can really only end one way, Lylyth is going to try to kill Prime Haley and I have to make it as hard as possible to pull off. Sadly I cannot just stay far back, because I need the Temporal Flux bubble up covering my army, and my army has to get far up because I can only get work done in melee. I've played this match up, though not versus this very list, a couple of times in preparation for the WTC and I'm sure it can be done. 

This time though, I don't win. I get the fort built, but since I misplace Past Haley I can only put one Storm Lance and the Ironclad blocking LoS to Prime. Getting another Storm Lance in there probably wouldn't have saved me though, since Typhon was what cleared the one horse there. After a 35 minute long turn with tons of proxy bases, Chris (with my help measuring and placing stuff) decides on a course of action. He gets Past Haley and the Storm Lance dead with Typhon, and then Lylyth goes. He needs a boosted 10 to hit, going for more boosts rather than Wraithbane. Sadly, he gets it at the first shot and feat makes me stationary. Nevertheless, with 2 camp I almost survive. His last attack, a carnivean spray, brings me down to the box. I have actually toughed the Haley unit, but even that fails me. 

Essentially, getting the boosted 10 on the first try gets him the game. Had that missed I live and I win the game considering he's given up Typhon, his feat and a turn of attrition to get here. As I said, the game comes down to him trying to kill me, I build a subpar Fort Haley and it's still around a coinflip who wins the game. I'm not saying this to take anything away from Chris - he played very well, he got the assassination mapped out where I think most people wouldn't have, and he did what he had to do in the match up.

A Canadian coin. 

In the end, I'm closest to winning my game and we get 0-5:d by the Canadians. They end up on 3rd place, meaning we lost to the 1st and 3rd placing teams. With 4-2 we get 11th out of 64 teams, which is good. We were hoping for a top 10, but it was not to be. Even at 11th we placed third out of the Swedish teams, which was another thing we were hoping to avoid, haha! But by placing 4th, 9th and 11th, Sweden proved we have a very wide base of great players.


Overall
The WTC was a great experience. The Sunday evening was amazing, I got to spend it with the winning Australians, some Americans and Brits, Norbert, some Swedes and other loose people. Hanging out with people who're really passionate about the same thing you are is the best feeling. I'm not sure if I'll get the opportunity to go again next year, both on a private basis and a "professional" basis. If Sweden only gets 2 teams next year I think it would be tough for me to win a spot, considering how good the competition is. 

All opponents I got to play were great guys, from first round to last. Pleasant to chat with, good knowledge of the rules, precise players. Very enjoyable experience.

Wow, this post really is a wall of text. If anyone made it to the end, a big thanks to you. I'll probably get a post up later this week about what I've learned about my own playing and the game after this intense period of gaming between the team selection and the WTC. 

Thanks for reading!

Battle of Westridge, 10-11 september (battles 7-11)

Hello,

today's blog post will be about a tournament called Battle of Westridge, which was played in the middle of September. Why the delay, you ask, avid reader? I've had shitloads to do at university for the weeks following BoW, and after that, WTC, and after that, shitloads to do again. Prioritising real life? That is, to quote myself (which I have gathered is a bad thing to do), sickening, I know.

These were my lists:

Haley2
- Thorn
- Stormwall
- Ironclad
- Squire
Min Storm Lances
Ragman
Lanyssa Ryssyl
Journeyman Warcaster
- Firefly

Haley3
- Thorn
- Grenadier
- Grenadier
- Ironclad
Max Trenchers
Max Storm Lances
Ragman
Rhupert
Journeyman Warcaster
- Charger

Anyway, it was a cool tournament. We wound up 40 players I believe, which is a bit smaller than last years BoW. I think the main organiser of last year's success was slacking off to be honest. The gaming hall is a big hall in a local High School in Västerås (pronounced like Westeros, but luckily without dragons) with loads of free air above us, making it the one and only tournament without gaming stank and lack of oxygen. Splendid times were had, as a result.

GAME 1
Gaming-wise, similarly great times were had. My first game was versus Magnus Forslund from up north somewhere (I'm not great at Swedish geography), playing mercenaries. 

This was a long time ago, so I won't remember the exact lists. I faced Damiano with Idrians with UA, Steelhead Halberdiers, Steelhead Riflemen, Aiyana & Holt, a heavy of some sort, a Freebooter or Mariner, and 3 light warjacks. 

Scenario was Recon I believe, so my plan is pretty much to advance into the zone so I won't lose on scenario somehow and then just slowly whittle his army down. I rely on Haley3:s OP-ness to carry the day here. 

Deployment, except Damiano moved of course.

 I cloud up as a reponse. The forest helps me be a little more spread out behind the clouds.

Magnus ran a light into my lines here and jammed some trenchers and the right grenadier. I couldn't figure out a way to get the smoke down after killing it, so the smokewall is less than perfect. The proxy base next to Past Haley is my Ironclad.

I missed taking a picture after his turn. He sent a heavy into my Ironclad, and missed the second attack for his chain-attack: smash and grab. The heavy dies in retaliation. I think I decide to drop Tactical Supremacy by now, it's too annoying and I rather want trenchers doing work here.

 Magnus jams me again, killing some stuff I guess.

Thorn and Ironclad slowly working their way through idrians and steelhead riflemen. Storm lances with echo support are eventually winning versus a light and halberdiers. 

End of the game. Damiano is the only bad guy left.

Victory!

What wound up happening was pretty much Magnus got choked on the temporal flux-enhanced army of Haley3 and couldn't grind through it all. I did have a tough time getting through all of this stuff as well, mostly because Past Haley suddenly couldn't even deliver the beatdown to a light with a shield properly. What the fuck. 

His list did have a good shot at attritioning down Haley3 though. Deadeye goes a long way to clear my stuff, and Damiano apparently has some kind of aoe-thing on his gun which Magnus utilised very well. 

This isn't exactly a fancy, strategical game. You just have to rely on Temporal Flux to get you there eventually, while keeping Prime Haley safe and trade well.


GAME 2 
My second game was versus fellow WTC-player Stefan Benediktsson. He brought cryx, Deneghra1 and Coven. I sort of wanted to drop Haley2 here, but I was a bit afraid of Deneghra1 shooting the shit out of my stormwall, and well, everything else as well, if I did that. The Haley2 list doesn't have incredible ways of punishing stealth models either, which put me a bit off. On top of that, I had played versus Stefan quite recently, where I ground out a scenario/attrition win with Haley3 versus Coven. All these things in concert made me choose Haley3. 

Stefan dropped Coven. He ran Deathjack, Barathrum, 1 node, 2 stalkers, full Soulhunters, Withershadow. Maybe something more, but that was generally it.

What happened in this game is pretty much that I fucked up late-game. The scenario is Extraction, which is neither a fast nor a slow scenario in my experience. My game plan is to give up 2 scenario points to get him to expend his feat, and then contest heavily from there. 

So first half of the game is pretty much according to plan, even though we jockey for position a turn longer than I had expected. I give up two CP, but I even get 2 for free since Stefan killboxes himself on accident. What needs to happen following this is I get lots of models including the echoes up to contest, as I hinted at before. What I do instead is, well, I don't contest heavily enough. The one side I clear out to the degree that Stefan can't reliably get to at all, BUT the other side I only get like thorn, a grenadier +1 trencher and a storm lance into. 

I misposition my storm lances badly here, getting them stuck behind that huge obstruction for the late-game. They should probably all be more central instead.

This is the last turn I played well, I think.


I fuck up my positioning and don't even get past Haley there because I somehow decide it's more important to lay the beatdown on Deathjack (who only loses like 3/4 of his boxes anyway, much disappoint). As a result, Stefan clears everything out (needing Malice to come drag Thorn out of there, which she easily gets done). Had I gotten the echo in there, I might've been fine, and had I decided to charge both echoes there I probably would have been. 

Apparently the best I could do, contesting wise. I'm a scrub.

Malice with the clutch drag-shot!

Crushing defeat.

All isn't on me in this game though! Stefan played very well, and had learned more from our last game than I had (not uncommon, I find that the winner typically learns less, all other things equal). 

By the time the late-game had started, there were a small crowd watching our game since it probably was one of the most high-profile game this early in the tournament. Cygnar and Haley3 in particular is very disliked amongst my gaming buddies, so quite a few heckling comments and wishes that I lost were thrown around, all in jest. We have a discourse where this is acceptable behaviour so no hard feelings towards them, but I must admit it did get to me some and I probably played worse than I would have otherwise. 

Either the following round or the one after that, Stefan got paired versus Olov who runs identical lists to mine. Olov dropped Haley2 and trounced Stefan quite convincingly from what I was able to gather, so maybe I dropped the wrong list. 

GAME 3
Round 3 I'm up against Hugo Svanborg and his mercenaries. He runs Magnus2 and Damiano Kingmakers as his pairing. I think Haley2 probably also would have been fine here, but being more comfortable with Haley3 that's what I go for. 

Hugo runs 3 nomads, a buccaneer to knock Damiano down every turn, 2 full trencher units with ua, rangers. I think he had min Boomhowlers ambushing, but forgot to bring them on? I can't remember really; there were no trolls on the board so if he had them he forgot to bring them in. 

As far as over-arching plans go, this game was similar to the first game in my eyes. I wanted to get my ironclad and on echo into my zone to lock that down, and then get storm lances and another echo plus the trenchers who live long enough into Hugo's zone. Again, Damiano has a decent shot at grinding versus Haley3, except that Tactical Supremacy gives me a huge leg up. A specific note for Damiano Kingmakers is that the buccaneer can knock Damiano down every turn, allowing him to spend focus A LOT more safely. Cute piece of tech in my eyes!

Hugo goes mainly for his friendly zone as can be seen from the first picture below, probably the correct choice.

First turn with aggressive advances from both of us. I can't remember who went first. The forest is good to me, considering how far I can extend my LoS-blocking this way. 

At this point I have gotten some trenchers down in his zone with some potshots and the charging storm lance. I think it did some damage to the objective here. On my right, I remember the grenadier getting 3 focus and shooting out the cortex and right arm of the nomad. Hugo was mighty salty. 

I missed a turn in between here, but where Hugo had his trenchers on my left put down smoke to allow Damiano and the heavies to stand unmolested from the storm lances. What I managed to get done this turn was getting Future Haley into his zone (I think Hugo is at 2 CP here), Past Haley into my zone, and most importantly, I got Thorn into both his heavies by triggering his reaction drive and then walking there through his cloudwall. We're both pretty low on trenchers here, me losing a couple every turn and then this particular turn downing like 8 of his. 

Hugo, hating Haley3 with the fire of a thousand suns, tilts too hard after getting both heavies disrupted. The following turn he can MAYBE kill Future Haley but definitely not Thorn. He runs Damiano towards my Storm Lances, turn around, and say "do whatever you want". 

So yeah I kill him. 

Victory!

Nothing much to say here, the list does what it does.

GAME 4
For the last round of the day I get paired up against Niclas Ledin, whom I haven't played that many times. Sadly I only seem to get to face him the last round of the events we play, so I'm always pretty tired, and with that often comes some sloppy playing, not in a cheating way, mainly in bad placement on my part. I'm pretty sure that happens to most people in this game, but I often seem to get it very bad versus Niclas in particular. He's a good sport about it though and doesn't seem to mind much when I get bitchy because I'm disappointed in my playing.

Niclas, being the gentleman he is, runs Doomshaper3 and one of the Grissels. No Madrak2 here! He chose Doomshaper, who ran with Krielstone, Janissa, double Fire Eaters, Mulg, Mauler, Dozer&Smigg, Axer, Lanyssa pretty much.

I briefly considering choosing Haley2 for this game, thinking that she probably can work with brick style armies such as the ones Niclas is running. I end up choosing Haley3 though, mainly because I'm better with her than with Haley2.

Close Quarters being the scenario, with a big forest protecting my flag, I think I can slowly tick this down on scenario. Niclas deploying heavily towards his flag makes this an even more likely proposition. 

Niclas went first, and this is past my turn 1. I push forward a bit cautiously, not being a huge fan of losing Trenchers to fire eaters early. 

Niclas went for a cool throw-play which I didn't even consider he had. He casts implacability and tries throwing Mulg twice. The second throw fails though, so Mulg just has to walk up towards my lines. 

I got lucky! Had the second throw got off I would have lost a grenadier and some trenchers definitely, a huge set-back for my attrition plans. Anyway, since Niclas feated, I won't get much done at all this turn. I think my storm lances tangle with some fire eaters, and I push up slightly on my right flank.

This is past Niclas turn again. Mulg failed to kill Past Haley. Believe it or not, that's not too unlikely. He needs 11:s to hit, and then hitting at plus a couple (Haleys have Arcane Shield by now) he needs like a 8 or 9 to kill considering the echo is camping. The rest of his stuff is too far back to really work versus my army at this point.

This should be after my following turn. I'm too scared to advance Prime up to dominate the flag yet, but I kill a fire eater at my flag. And Mulg of course. I spent feat to accomplish this. I have no idea why the pictures are so different suddenly.

This is following my next turn. I have advanced Prime onto my flag, killed the last fire eaters, and started pushing into his flag. During the course of the game I do tons of damage to the mauler in particular, but he can snack a couple of models each turn sadly. Considering my scenario position this doesn't bother me overly. Niclas did score first, but he has no models to contest my flag with. 

Slowly working my way around the forest. I don't remember exactly how many turns this part of the game took, but I scored on his turn at least once.Thorn is barely within Flux range at this picture, making him hard as fuck to shift.

Niclas is moving the Stone very far away from me here. This is to preserve his heavies attrition-wise, which does work, but on the other hand he gets down to having no models to contest my flag with instead. 

This is the end of the game, with me winning 5-3. Thorn finally went down, and a grenadier got thrown away from the flag. I think Niclas did score this final turn, but at this point I have pretty much just used the rest of my army to jam him away from my flag. I boxed in my Ironclad last turn or he would've killed Dozer. No matter.

Victory!

Had the throw-Mulg-plan come together better for Niclas things might've looked differently come mid-game. As it was, this game felt very much under control, even though I played my models poorly. 

GAME 5
First game day two, I get paired versus Mercenaries, AGAIN. This time it's double dwarves, Gorten and Ossrum. These fine short-legged fellows were piloted by Benjamin Hyvönen, from the north. I forgot to take any pictures at all for day 2, but it'll have to do. Luckily, this is the game I remember best from the tournament, so get ready for a wall of text I guess.

Both Benjamin's lists are similar, running a high number of light warjacks. He drops Gorten, which has like 3 heavies, 6 lights and a unit of Forge Guard and Aiyana & Holt. 

I'm not entirely sure I have what it takes to chew through that kind of list with Haley3, so it's time for Haley2. The scenario is Outlast, which being rather live I think is good for me. 

I get to go first, and push up very aggresively turn 1. Stormwall in the middle, storm lances on the left, ironclad and thorn on the right. Benjamin answers by advancing too, but he's a dwarf so it's not very aggresively. He keeps his jacks a bit back too, being very cautious of Haley's ability to steal a jack.

My turn two I go hard for scenario on my left side. I push Haley forward, feat aggresively, catching everything except his Aiyana and Holt I think. Maybe Gorten gets away, being far to my right. I kill the light warjack in the zone, and two outside it. Thorn gets placed sort of haphazardly in the middle, originally to keep a light warjack out of my left zone, but the robot got killed by the stormwall so he's in the wind more or less.

Even worse is my placement of my ironclad. I run him up a bit, still in the right zone, to pressure Benjamin for the next turn.

What winds up happening is that the Ironclad is placed perfectly to be drug into Benjamin's forge guard, a heavy and Gorten. It dies, unsurprisingly. 

So losing a heavy on Haley2 feat turn is fucking TERRIBLE, and to make matters worse, I didn't jam his lights properly so one can get into the left zone. I don't score on his turn, while he does control the right zone. He also got a fair bit of damage done to Thorn, knocking his arc node out.

Luckily I score 2, dominating the left zone next turn. I also get to run my squire into his the right zone, wasting to of its free focus, since I gave away the ironclad for free. I kill 2 lights or something here. Thorn is stuck in front of his forge guard, after disrupting a heavy, since I forgot about the arc node being out. I had a great plan to TK him, reaction drive, nuke both Aiyana and Holt and thus score 3 on this turn. Alas, it was not to be. At this point I'm even more annoyed with myself.

So considering I only contest with my Squire, it comes as no surprise that Benjamin scores. He moves Gorten in to dominate, to get up on the scenario clock. He also sends in a bokur and a heavy to kill half the stormwall, and gets a light into the left zone. 3-2 to Benjamin.

My only chance at winning here is to score 3 this turn. Luckily my zone is easy; Haley can charge a bunny and TK it out of the zone. I need to control the right zone too though. Since I accidentally jammed Benjamin with first my ironclad and then thorn, I'm running out of models. As an upside, he hasn't gotten very far up the board, being occupied with killing high-value models. He's got Aiyana, Holt and 2 forge guard in the zone, and Gorten. An intense couple of minutes of planning later, the Firefly is the designated hero. He gets fully allocated from his buddy the journeyman, gets telekinesised, temporally accelerated. Stormwall has to shoot down 2 forge guard. Sadly for the firefly, the stormwall steals some of her thunder and kills his dwarves and Holt. All that remains is for the Firefly to charge Aiyana, stab her and the game is mine.

Victory!

After a couple of shaky plays early and mid game, I salvage the game with a great last turn. Haley2 really is a great caster. A Gorten jackspam list is sort of rough on Cygnar, I think, but Haley2 has a decent game at worst, and a rather good one if the scenario is favourable as it was here. 

This turns out being the last round of the tournament as our pair-down loses. I go 4-1 but with bad SoS puts me at 8/40. Unexpectedly so, honestly, since all my opponents tend to do well at tournaments. Hugo dropped after the first day, and the rest sort of underperformed sadly. But moving past that, I went 4-1 versus good opponents so I'm feeling pretty good about myself going into the WTC, two weeks after this tournament.