Seattle Open AKA Mistakes and How to Make Them.

Ah, March. Spring is springing. The sun in Seattle begins to gain credibility as a non-mythical entity. And Mox Boarding House decides to put on a WMW qualifying tournament. I love the Seattle Open. First, Jeff always puts on a great tournament and manages to still be amusing while dealing with a thousand people at once. Second, the competition is really great. I enjoyed nearly every match. Did I win? No. Did I make a showing? I think so. I tried my best.

"Your best? Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen."
- Sean Connery in the best film ever made.

The topography of tournament was pretty telling. Guns are still stronk. Very stronk. The breakdown of factions were:

12 Cygnar
9 Circle Orboros
8 Protectorate of Menoth
8 Retribution of Scyrah
7 Khador
7 Legion of Everblight
6 Skorne
4 Trollbloods
3 Convergence of Cyriss
2 Mercenaries
1 Cryx

And who was that spooky, mysterious, and surprisingly sexy lone Cryx player?!

Damn, I'm pretty.

My pairing was a good ole' Cryx wombo combo. Denny1 with the Ghost Fleet (very spooky) as my heavy lifting list paired with Skarre1 (spooky but only sorta) for dealing with armor.


Stockpile - Steamroller Objective
Pirate Queen Skarre - WJ: +28

• Skarlock Thrall - PC: 4 
• Nightmare - PC: 18 (Battlegroup Points Used: 18) 
• Stalker - PC: 8 (Battlegroup Points Used: 8)
• Stalker - PC: 8 (Battlegroup Points Used: 2) 
• Malice - PC: 15 

Warwitch Siren - PC: 4
Satyxis Raider Captain - PC: 4
Bane Warriors - Leader & 9 Grunts: 17
Bane Warrior Officer & Standard - Officer & Standard: 6
Satyxis Raiders - Leader & 9 Grunts: 16
Satyxis Raider Sea Witch - PC: 3 

And...

Bunker - Steamroller Objective
Warwitch Deneghra - WJ: +28

• Nightmare - PC: 18 (Battlegroup Points Used: 18) 
• Deathripper - PC: 6 (Battlegroup Points Used: 6) 
• Deathripper - PC: 6 (Battlegroup Points Used: 4) 
• Reaper - PC: 13 

Pistol Wraith - PC: 0
Captain Rengrave - PC: 0
Pistol Wraith - PC: 0
Blackbane's Ghost Raiders - Blackbane & 9 Grunts: 17
Revenant Crew of the Atramentous - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9

• Revenant Crew Rifleman - PC: 2 
• Revenant Crew Rifleman - PC: 2 
• Revenant Crew Rifleman - PC: 2 

Revenant Crew of the Atramentous - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9

• Revenant Crew Rifleman - PC: 2
• Revenant Crew Rifleman - PC: 2 
• Revenant Crew Rifleman - PC: 2 

Revenant Crew of the Atramentous - Leader & 5 Grunts: 9

• Revenant Crew Rifleman - PC: 2 
• Revenant Crew Rifleman - PC: 2 

Neither list is super interesting. The only "hmmmm" I received was with the banes. I really like banes and in game 2 I got to live the dream with the mini feat. So, on to the matches.

Lets see if pirates carry me as well as they carried this shit franchise.

My first round was against a really great dude, Stephen Cox. This was my second time playing against him and I have learned 3 things. First, my dice decide to cow to his beard. Second, he is a great guy and the kind of opponent you can learn a lot from. Third, I fucking hate Retribution.

He played Issyria with the hyperion, MHSF with Eiryss, and sentinels to which I responded with Skarre. This was my first mistake. I think I was too afraid of the true sight feat and crit consume. I was able to go first but that meant he was able to counter deploy. He set his mage hunters across from my banes and sentinels across from the raiders. Banes hate shooting, raiders hate armor 22 infantry.

After the standard runs in round 1 I feated on turn 2 to take out a lot of sentinels with the satyxis. Banes tried to follow up but at SPD 5 they just have a hard time getting near fast infantry. My stalkers moved in to threaten Issyria. Malice moved on a hill and nightmare moved center to try and bait the hyperion but stay away from the MHSF.

He feated. It was a slaughter. Raiders were already bad off due to vengeance and a round of attacks by the sentinels. But then he managed to crit consume banes in a trench. Then the MHSF... Oh god. They ripped Malice apart like it was nothing. A few others took out the odd bane. This was all after Issyria pulled her patented "Fuck you, I'm out" and used velocity to totally shift the board. The stalkers had no angles.

I had 3 raiders, the solo, 2 stalkers, and 3 banes and Skarre herself. I allocated focus to the stalkers and went for the last ditch feedback assassination. I cast backlash on the hyperion. Snake eyes put an end to that plan with Skarre hanging out in the middle of the board. It was over at that point.

Ok so that was a rough start but hopefully round 2 is a favorable match up and I can... It's Retribution again. So this round was against Aaron the weapon maker. You ever see those dope weapons at Lock and Load? Chances are he made it. He was a great guy and I had a blast playing him. I think round 2 came down to goofy moves and who could recover first. He brought Thyron with double sentinels and 2 banshees.

We ran up. I was able to alpha. Feated raiders and a stalker made quick work of my left flank while banes mini feated and worked the right. I got to live the dream of 15 banes on the field. So spooky. I spent way too long on my turn and turned the clock over to him at somewhere around 15 minutes left. He worked quick, took out some stuff with his solos (Eiryss, MH assasin) and the remaining sentinels as well as some banshee slam bullshit. And they did work. Clock is back to me. Hemming and hawing, it takes me 13 minutes to figure out what to do and do it. Killed his warjacks with Nightmare and Malice and stare uncomfortably long at Thyron. 2 minutes on the clock. Aaron runs Thyron back looking to clock me. My next turn I eat his objective and his remaining solos in about a minute. 3 points to James. his next turn he realizes he ran too far and literally can't contest.

It's OK. This was on his shirt. 

Round 3 was against a really nice dude who just moved to the Seattle area, Keaton. He was rocking a Caine3 list in heavy metal. I was sad but accepted his decision. I played Skarre. For being my off list she saw a lot of action...

We both moved up. I had run my stalkers up to draw fire. His second turn he kept declaring shots at the stalker while forgetting they were stealth. He was pretty strict on keeping to his mistakes. He hadn't played in awhile so for him, this was a bit of a refresher. All of his lights were clumped in the center. I feated and a stalker took out Ace and most of a charger. The other put a few holes in the the stormwall. Raiders moved up aggressively while banes spread out. Skarre hid behind the objective.

He went for the kill run. If he didn't my stalkers would get to him. He did a good job unpacking the clogged center by knocking over a stalker and clearing the way. He killed a few raiders but by chance one happened to be covering the only area from which he could assassinate.Ryan was locked down so he couldn't shadow fire the objective. He tried for the back up of blowing up the objective but dice didn't do him any favors. He scooped.

Round 4 was against a pretty cool dude. I think him and I got off to a rough start since we were both tired but as the game went on better spirits prevailed. That or his beer kicked in and he could weather me being a complete dick. I think his name was Matt but some people called him Boris or Goris or something. I really wish I got his name. He was super knowledgeable. He picked Doomy2 MK, EBDT, Mulg, Axer, stone, and northkin shaman. I decided now was the time for pirates. We both forgot our "After all models are deployed" effects but when we realized it he was cool enough to let me get my prey out on the MK and he got his free spells.

I ran forward, getting my rifles up as far as they could. Pistol wraiths and chickens on the flank. Reaper to the right and nightmare right middle across from the MK. With Denny1 and prey nightmare was very scary to the MK. He opened up by moving everything up to the edge of the zone. He moved MK up and attempted to spray the chicken on the right but he was about a 1/4" out. Shaman and axer went to the left. Doomy, stone went up the gut behind Mulg and the EBDT. He passes back to me.

I feat and throw crippling grasp on the MK. I drop a spray on the stones and wiff. Revs move up and shoot some stone bros. I take out 3. Blackbanes race up the right side to take out the shaman. To be honest I really didnt achieve much on feat except to cut the legs out from his.

He feated. Mulg moved up and popped his animus and killed 4 riflemen. EBDT moved up and killed 3 more. His stone ruined the Blackbane's ghostly spirit and allowed his axer to thresher into 4 of them. The mountain king aimed and made a kingly spray down the line. He put serious hurt on the chicken on the right as well as a pirate. He had full fury on everyone but the EBDT.

I moved nightmare in to take out his only transfer target. The chicken on the left ducked and weaved into position. Denny boosted a crippling grasp on to Doomy as well as a boosted spray. 2 pistol wraiths finished the job.

My last round was against Andrew. If I won I got some duckets. If I lost, Andrew got to laugh at me while pointing. His friends had the option of chanting. He played Wyrmwood and I played Denny. It is important to note the table. It had 2 forests ~16" in. I got to learn about Cassius the hard way.

Turn one I ran up. He ran Cassius into my forest and hellmouthed 7 pirates. RFP is very, very bad for me. The rest of his army (2 wyrds, Megalith, Feral Warpwolf, wolves, shamblers, and his sentry stones) he moved up. Some potshots took out a few more pirates and Blackbanes. My next turn I spent doing nothing but bitching. I was so of kilter from that massive RFP I just could do nothing other than lament. I think if I had been braver in the face of all of that I may have been able to wait out an assassination. Instead I killed what I could and lost on clock.

All in all it was a lot of fun. I have a few take aways. I don't think cryx is as weak as everyone says and they will only get stronger as the meta shifts to more infantry. And it is. Well... Infantry and huge bases. I also need to get better about keeping my cool. I feel like my chill was lacking towards the end and it cost me. But the most important thing I learned is that you need to special order trays for dude spam.

Thanks, Mekanika Studio, for letting me fit 70 dudes on a tray.

Thanks for reading. I will be trying to keep a constant flow of content on here from now on. My buddy, Zach (0los.blogspot.com), and I play a few times a week and will be posting thoughts, painting updates, and game videos from here on out. Let us know what you think and what you would like to see. You can comment here or hit me up on twitter @Abigoletater


-James