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Monday, February 28, 2011

Warmachine "Greenmachine" Tournament Reports


After my first tournament this past Saturday, Warmachine remains a very interesting game to me.  On the one hand, I enjoy the game mechanically and from an intellectual standpoint.  On the other hand, however, there is a bit of a "nasty surprise" aspect to the game, and I'm not sure the local scene is quite for me.  I'll try and illustrate using the tournament. 

My list for the tournament was (25 Points Mangled Metal):

Goreshade the Bastard
Helldiver
Deathjack
Reaper
Seether

Goreshade's feat creates a six strong unit of Bane Thralls as well.  The idea of the list was to use the Bane Thralls as assassins against enemy casters by throwing them forward on the feat turn, and to use the Reaper to drag enemy Beasts/Jacks away from their owners and then murder them with the Deathjack and Seethers.

My first game was against pThagrosh, with a Carnivean, Angelius, Shredder, and Seraph.  My opponent had obviously had a similar thought to me in list creation, in that Thagrosh can reincarnate a Beast as his feat, effectively giving him a bigger list.

He ran his army up the first turn, and left his Carnivean forward.  I used the Reaper on my turn to drag the Carnivean in, and then killed it with Deathjack.  I then feated with Goreshade, leaving the Banes in the backfield, and used Goreshades teleport to move the Reaper and Deathjack back into my backfield and out of range of his army.   He moved his army around the next turn and returned the Carnivean to life in his backfield.  I ran up the next turn, and then he killed my Banes with shooting and charges in his turn.  Unfortunately, his Angelius frenzied, and so was unavailable to him, and his Beasts were now in the charge range of all my Jacks.  I killed the Carnivean and Seraph in my turn, and my opponent conceded. 

I went into round two having a good time.  My opponent was a good friend of mine, and was a brand new player as well.  He brought Karchev, two Kodiaks, a Destroyer, and a Berserker.  With a huge charge range, I was a bit nervous, but it was a short game.  My opponent came forward, casting Tow to move all his Jacks.  After the first turn, I was able to use Mage Blight to shut down any chance of Karchev's feat or spells.  My opponent then upkept Tow and moved his Jacks, but left Karchev up in front of his Jacks.  I then moved Goreshade up, feated, and used the Bane Thralls to kill Karchev. 

My opponent was a bit upset after the game, because he thought my list was nasty, and decided to take a walk.  I can completely understand his frustration.  What was really awful was the T.O. then coming over to me in order to tell me how much of a "douchebag list" I had, and how she wished she had a "douchebag stamp" to stamp all over lists like mine. 

Let me put in my side here.  The first game of this tournament was my fifth total game overall.  While I can appreciate that the Goreshade list is hard, I thought I had come up with a clever list for a tournament, not something that required a T.O. to tell me about what a horrible person I was.  I suppose I was suckered in by a lack of experience with the game, and the idea that Page 5 had some small meaning. 

In the third game, I played another friend with his Circle.  My heart wasn't really in it, and he assassinated Goreshade using eKaya's feat and a Ghostly Warpwolf. 

Somehow I won first place in the tournament, and with zero product prize support (despite an entry fee) ended up with a Steamroller Coin.  My friends with Circle and Khador ended up with second and third, respectively. 

So, Warmachine.  I really enjoyed my first game.  I can understand my opponent being upset and surprised in the second round from the Bane Thralls, and wish that I had thought to explain that the Thralls could activate after being summoned.  I knew that my opponent had studied my caster prior to the tournament, and honestly thought he knew they did so.  However, I hated that the T.O. come stuff her face in a few minutes later and publicly berate me.  If my list was too hard, it sure as heck wasn't from my masterful understanding of the game and evil genius, and it sure could have been handled either before or after the tournament in a tactful manner. 

My only other experience with the local crowd, a couple weeks earlier, involved my opponent being friendly when he thought he was getting an easy league win out of a new player, and then turning surly and rude when I unexpectedly won.  I have had good game experiences with people that I've known from Fantasy and 40K previously. 

I want to like this game.  I like the miniatures and painting potential, the base rule system, and the Privateer Press customer service philosophy.  While I would in now way push the idea that Privateer Press players are anything but top notch, I fear that the local crowd may put me off the game. 

6 comments:

  1. First, I congratulate you on your win. I realize that it probably feels hollow given the circumstances but I feel it needs to be said.

    I'm a fledgling Warmahordes player that chose Cryx too. From my experiences ( which aren't that many ) we ARE the nasty surprise army, its what we do. If we were to try to match the other armies in what they are good at we would get creamed, no question.

    For what its worth I think that it was completely unprofessional for your T.O. to tell you that in the middle of a tourney let alone rude in general. In my opinion, once money hits the table then all bets are off. I'm not saying to go all WAAC-y but you have paid to play, if you don't bring your A game, whatever that may be, then you're wasting money.

    I say don't give up just yet. Money/time investment notwithstanding it is a very fun game. Its just different enough from the Warhammers to give you a refreshing change of pace. You just need to find someone more willing to take the game as it is.

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  2. Thanks for the support and the excellent points! I'm going to keep painting, and will play some more casual games, but I'm a little gun shy after these experiences, especially as a brand new player.

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  3. sorry you had such a bad experience. Sounds like a pretty poorly run tourny. Hopefully you can find some better people to play, or better tournys. Nothing ruins a tourny like a verbal dressdown. If you want a certain type of army, why would you not specify that? Crazy.

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  4. What kind of jerk goes to a tournament and tries to win? :-) Maybe they should have had a group hug and then given trophies to everyone for trying their best.

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  5. Wow, and now I have lost any desire I may have had to try this game

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  6. TO here. I came across your blog while running some random Google searches for North Carolina Warmachine. I know I have apologized before and the tourney was over month ago, but I also want to apologize so publicly.

    It was not my intent to cause you to lose interest in Warmachine or even in local events. Just as it was your first tournament, it was also mine. I know that this is no excuse for my unacceptable, inappropriate, and unprofessional behavior. I hope that you do give more local Warmachine events a chance, even if you avoid those that I run. I wouldn't blame you at all for avoiding my events. However, I would like the chance to apologize for my behavior in person, when you are ready.

    Since the fact that I, unintentional as it may have been, caused offense and, even potentially, a loss of interest to even one player came to my attention, I've felt horrible. I've also made a conscious effort to change my behavior for the better, especially when I run events.

    Again, I cannot apologize enough to you for my horrid behavior. I'd love to invite you out to a free play night sometime so that you can have a chance to get to know more players in the area and so that I may apologize in person for my bad behavior.

    Sincerest Apologies,
    Stephanie

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