Norwegian Masters 2013 - Game 3

Hoarluk2 vs Kreoss1 (Szymon Ratka, Menoth, Poland)

My third game was against Szymon Ratka from Poland. By the way, Szymon, since you asked, here is the link describing how to edit iBodger on android, so you can avoid the pain that is Slow Room.

My confident opponent,
I wish I was feeling half as relaxed.

High Exemplar Kreoss (*5pts)
* Redeemer (6pts)
* Reckoner (8pts)
Choir of Menoth (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Exemplar Errants (Leader and 9 Grunts) (8pts)
* Exemplar Errant Officer & Standard Bearer (2pts)
Holy Zealots (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Holy Zealot Monolith Bearer (2pts)
Exemplar Errant Seneschal (2pts)
Vassal of Menoth (1pts)
Vassal of Menoth (1pts)

His other list was Severius with three jacks and Examplars. I was a bit worried about the Kreoss knockdown against my Grim that wants to be up the board, so again I picked Doomshaper. Him, at least, I can keep way back.

I go first, and Szymon takes the side with the nice obstacle to hide behind.

Round 1

Advancing upon the Inquisition.

I run up, as usual.

He moves up, zealots minifeat.

Round 2

So much Fury, so few Whelps.
I even ran out of  Fury counters,.

I use Mulg, Goad, Rök and Refuge to remove about half of the Errants. This left me with quite a lot of Fury on the board, though. It was Axer (2), Mulg(5), Rok(5), Pyre Troll(1), Doomy(3). Way too much. I had no reason to camp so much on Doomy, except that I was worried about a surprise assassination... and then I tend to camp a bit extra, just in case. Maybe it's a habit that I should try to ditch.

Szymon made the excellent play of moving up, not attacking any of my beasts, and just shooting out my Whelp that was close enough for being Comfort Food. This is of course the correct counter to what i was doing, but since noone else I've played against does this, I hadn't really thought about it.

Round 3

Mulg is about the get Reckoned with, I reckon.

My beasts go bananas. The Axer frenzies onto Rök, dealing a few points. Rök frenzies, but I choose to charge him into a well, preventing him from reaching Mulg. We were a bit uncertain about whether this was a valid play, but the judges agreed I could charge any direction I wanted as long as it was a valid charge direction (one that could theoretically get Rök into melee). The Pyre frenzied and charged Mulg. Mulg was on one Fury after I leached, but fortunately he did not frenzy. I hit the Reckoner, taking out its Movement. It  enlivened away. I knocked the cortex off the Reckoner, and cleared off most of the remaining errants. Szymon informed that I was pretty lucky with knocking off the gun, he was pretty sure Kreoss was within drop-n-pop range... and I think he was right.

[Edit] I have been informed by Mr. Golden Deal on the PP forums that the ruling was incorrect. Thank you. The offical ruling is old. This has actually been errata'ed... you cannot voluntarily choose a charge direction that causes the charge to fail. The errata can be downloaded from this page. I apologize. Fortunately it did not matter in the end.

Szymon feated, knocking all my beasts down. He removed my stone buff, the Reckoner killed Mulg, the zealots shot away the Axer.

Round 4

I has lost my Axer and had Rök on the wrong side of a wall, I forgot that I had no pathfinder. I started setting up an assassination run, gave him Primal, but then realized that I could not actually do it. So, I just used him to berserk away some Zealots.

The Reckoner killed the Pyre Troll and Kreoss went into the zone.

Round 5

If I remember correctly, I lost on tiebreaker. Or maybe I was assassinated. It was all too traumatic for my mind to hold, obviously. Maybe you can remind me, Szymon? :D

[Edit] Szymon says: It went to dice down, and Rök had frenzied away, and he had more stuff in the zone.

Conclusion

I'm now 2-1.

Szymon played an excellent game, placing his Enlivened Jacks so I could not touch him, and shooting out my Whelps under me when I overextended. My main mistake was to use so much Fury on just killing a few Errants that could not really touch me. If I had not, I could have hit the Zealots with my Axer first, and things would likely have gone differently. Also, I misjudged the distance from Doomshaper to Kreoss, which should have cost me the game earlier.

Well, I got my ass handed to me by a better player, lesson learnt. We both thought it was a very good game.

Comment by Szymon:

It was very good game and I really enjoyed it. It also was the first time when I didn't attack enemy warbeast to prevent from spawning whelps. That means that i also learned something.  I hope we can meet in Poland one day and play a revenge match 

Next game: I face the person responsible for getting me hooked on WARMACHINE in the first place, Leif Bøhli. Will I get revenge on my friend/colleague/mentor/drug dealer?