ITC up in flames

[Ludvig]

 

Last weekend I went to the ITC with Team Lollipop, aka the finnish team and me - a random swede who had been invited to fill out the team.
 
The amazingly friendly fins had been informed that my moderate success at swedish tournaments coupled with the fact that I hadn’t played too much the last six months meant that I wouldn’t be really improving their odds of a win but decided that my personality would do, for which I am very grateful.   I didn’t really prepare properly from my hiatus by building crews before the tournament since I had a really stressful couple of weeks leading up to it. I mostly just threw in the models I figured I would use and got on the plane. I also didn't use the time during matchup to build my crew sinceour team tried to create favourable matchups of masters so I wasn't always sure which of two tables I would be playing. This left me sort of stressed during setup when most of my opponents seemed to know what they were going to play before coming to the table. Just deciding and building to the table and strat would probably have worked better. I had also accepted to take Sonnia into any interference games despite really sucking at interference, I should really have made myself a comfortable crew for that well in advance. 
 

My team did ok in my eyes, finishing 11th out of 18 teams. You'll see how I contributed below!
 
Game 1 was Extraction (Standard), Claim Jump, Dig their graves, Leave your mark, Hunting party, Search the ruins. I played against Viktor from Northern Moose cavalry. I brought McCabe with Queeg, Francisco, a hunter, a guardian, Luna and the brutal effigy. I had all of McCabes 2ss upgrades and promises on Queeg. Viktor brought Marcus with a rogue necro, Myranda, Cassandra, a waldgeist, wind gamin, raptor and possibly something else. Queeg died turn one, I killed the rogue necro turn two and then most of my stuff died over a few turns while he scored points from the strat, hunting party and leave your mark. I managed to get a few strat points but failed miserably at everything else (leave your mark and dig their graves) so I ended up loosing 3 - 9. Luna was supposed to put markers for leave your mark but got tied up by a wind gamin and I really didn’t have the models to drop markers before the few kills that I did which made dig a pretty bad scheme for me. In retrospect I should probably have kept less minions around and gone for an even killier crew to score hunting party instead. This crew sort of felt like what I used to bring with Lucius last year when I looked back at it. I messed up my activations since it had been a while since playing McCabe so I managed to leave his waldgeist at one wound and have Myranda heal it right back up among other dumb choices. Over all I had a very enjoyable game despite me messing up and loosing 9 - 3.
 
Game 2 was against Conor playing for Abnormalifaux. Turf War (Flank), Claim Jump, Frame for Murder, Dig their graves, Mark for death, Show of force.
 I had McCabe again and he had Collodi. The board was really open and had some rough terrain in the middle so shooty crews would probably have done well. None of us went with that. My opponent had mostly cheap minions in the form of marionettes, a doppleganger, brutal and whichever effigy lets you push and three(!) stitched. I had Johana and Francisco, a death marshal, Luna, a couple of hounds and double wastrels. Instead of doing something sensible I figured that charging McCabe at a stitched turn one would be a solid move. Collodi pushed around all over the place and scored by digging graves for Luna and her canine companions. I actually facilitated this by charging him near scheme markers like an idiot instead of running away with my hounds. Johana’s only contribution was taking the last wound off an emissary that had been hurt pretty bad and marked for death by my death marshal (who else to mark stuff for death?!). I’m pretty sure he had frame on the doppelganger and that I stupidly gave him three points with McCabe, could have been something else too, Francisco did kill a few things. I also had show of force which I scored without much resistance since he only had one upgrade on the doppleganger. My idiot dash with McCabe payed off decently and I killed a lot of his stuff but couldn’t lock Collodi down. It came at the cost of needing to walk Johanna instead of killing stuff with her turn one but at the same time it kept my upgrades safe since I couldn’t be aggressive with her or Francisco which probably saved them from the stitched. My wastrels managed to get killed, I think one of them took out a stitched on two wounds. At the beginning of turn 5 Collodi was on three wounds and engaged with McCabe so a single weak hit would have killed him. My opponent naturally won initiative and Collodi killed so many models that I couldn’t score the last strategy point which cost me the game. Since I had the advantage of deploying second I could probably have been a lot smarter with my hounds to not give away such easy points on dig. If I had forced Collodi within the threat range of both Johana and Francisco to get kills I might have had a decent shot at neutering it. Final score 10 - 9 to Conor.
 
 
Game 3 was Interference (Close), Claim Jump, Eliminate the Leadership, Frame for Murder, Leave your mark, Covert Breakthrough against Ross of the Pariahs of card. He had Seamus and I had Sonnia on a cramped city board. The center line had some ht 2 terrain dead center, two passageways and then some buildings before clearing up at the board edges. I used a malifaux child, Francisco, two stalkers with a handler, the effigy and a watcher. Seamus had bag of tools, his emissary, Yin, a couple of belles, Big Jake, the carrion effigy and another minion that I forget what it was.
 
I had Sonnia and Francisco dead center. My right flank was the witch hunters against Big Jake hiding in a corner and a belle more aggresively placed. My left flank had my watcher and effigy unopposed. The rest of Ross’ crew was placed fairly centrally. Turn one started with me blocking off his closest approach. Well, so I thought, forgot that Yin can ignore everything when walking so my first big mistake was placing the markers close to her so she could clear them in a single walk. He responded by blocking off the other central-ish approach with shard markers from his emissary and then walking backwards to avoid Sonnia targeting it. Franciwsco pulled Sonnia up so she could target the emissary and she put some damage on it but failed to blast. Seamus popped right next to Sonnia and started smacking her with his bag of tools. Francisco was lured by the central nurse and was paralyzed by Yin who cleared my flame wall without any effort. I actually forgot to activate my watcher turn one which may have cost me the game the way it played out. 
The start of turn two saw Seamus ending Sonnia with a lucky red joker so not looking great. Francisco had paralyzed cleared by a stalker and used enfrentate a mi to get away from Yin and lucked out by oneshotting a belle with the red joker. The stalker and handler killed his emissary and belle which scored him two frame points for the emissary. My watcher and effigy apent the rest of the game running from Yin and dropping markers. The child tried to keep Yin engaged so she couldn’t tie them up but unsurprisingly failed the task. The stalker and handler actually managed to kill off Seamus when he came to deal with them but instead of dropping a scheme marker to secure me the win I used the stalker’s last activation turn 5 to shoot at Big Jake which had no prospect of giving me any VP. This intensely stupid rookie move cost me the game since I didn’t get my last point from leave your mark. The game ended in a  6 - 6 draw. 
 
Game 4 was another round of interference, this time against Panzer Harris from Squigs. The pool was Interference (Standard), Claim Jump, Leave your mark, Dig Their Graves, Mark of Death, Tail ’em. He put forward Marcus against my Sonnia. My opponent had Marcus, Myranda, Angelica with PP, double raptors, a night terror and two sabertooth cerberii and the jackalope. The board was relatively open but had a few huge rock formations in the center and some vantage point walkways in the potential deployment zones. Also a forest to either side. I deployed first (lost the flip) and Sonnia started on the ht 3 walkway where I thought she would be safe from attack. I had Francisco in front but below it, two stalkers and handler off to one flank and several small, useless models in a clump near Sonnia. The useless bunch included the brutal effigy, malifaux child, a watcher and  a reporter. By the end of turn one I had three cerberii and Marcus uncomfortably close to me, all of them behind cover to completely break LoS. The flame walls my child had put up was useless since his entire crew had leap. I also had a rock formation in one corner of my deployment that was perfect for hiding a raptor behind. In retrospect I should really have left something there to guard that spot. Sonnia put a few points of damage on Marcus and the summoned cerberus which was close to him since I walked my watcher up to gain LoS. After that all hell broke loose with the huge cats leaping in and killing my stuff. I sent my witchlings to mark one cat on their flank but that gave my opponent easy dig points since Angelica put a marker there before the cat one-shotted a stalker and took points for dig. I eventually killed that Cerberus with my handler on turn 4 but not after it killed my other witchling. My center had nothing killy except for Sonnia and Francisco, the former was engaged until her death on turn three or four and the latter died first thing turn two from a fast cerberus. Sonnia managed to mark and kill a cerberus before dying which was some small comfort. What got her? A cerberus of course! Angelica spent the game in her deployment using PP to score leave your mark while the night terror gave Panzer his second quarter. I messed up my positioning so I had really big trouble scoring any strat points even before my whole crew was eaten. I stupidly forgot to mark Marcus with tail ‘em until the fourth round. By that time I had three models alive near him so they got eaten during the round and Marcus broke LoS to my only remaining model - the handler. In retrospect I should have blocked off the walkway where Sonnia was standing with a flame wall to block him from placing raptors or Cerberii there and stop her shooting. This game would have been more interesting for me if she had been untouchable there. An austringer should also have been my first choice considering the insanely high likelyhood of an arcanist going for leave your mark with practiced raptors in that pool. The game ended 10-2 since I managed to kill two marked cats. Despite the crushing defeat I had a really fun game, I don’t see that many cats at the same time.
 
Game 5 was Collect the bounty against Jake from Drunk history. The exact setup was Collect the Bounty (Close), Claim Jump,  Leave your mark, Frame for Murder, Undercover Entourage, Show of Force I figured that McCabe had served me well against Collodi last game so I went with him again. My opponent had a trapper hanging out with a couple of changelings and a doppelganger in one corner behind terrain. Collodi, Lilitu an effigy and a couple of stitched hung out more centrally.
I rushed along but hid McCabe on my left flank where my opponent didn’t have any models. My slow rubbish crew was easily dismembered by Collodi and his friends. Turn two I lost both my enforcers and four minions and didn’t kill a single model. I had frame on my executioner which scored me two points. The game continued with him scoring for the strat until my only model was the trapper hiding in my deployment zone. High points included having my own warden flip a moderate hit against an activated Johana to take 6 hp away from her with the glowing saber when I reactivated it turn 1 and Collodi had made it slow and put on the condition to take it’s first ap.  Think end of turn two McCabe and Luna locked Collodi down against a building and I figured I could put it down and salvage a turn on the strat turn three. That might also let me score leave your mark uninterrupted since most of Jakes crew was on the other side of his deployment. I had completely forgotten that he had a doppelganger to cheat the initiative so that went south really quickly when Collodi went first and killed Luna so it was once again invincible due to pushes. At that point I had mentally given up since I had McCabe dehorsed and a trapper as my only models and was down in points with no real prospect of getting back. I reactivated McCabe to put a marker down far off to his weak flank but Lilitu walked over to block it. I then hid my trapper behind a building and offered to just fast forward to the game’s end. Jake revealed that he would be doing entourage on Collodi which I had no possible way to stop. Final score 5-2 in Jake’s favour since he couldn’t reach my trapper to score more bounty points. I can’t remember what his other scheme was but I’m guessing frame since he didn’t score it. Jake was a great opponent but funnily enough this game felt the most one-sided since I got killed so quickly. After loosing over half my models turn 2 and not killing a single thing in return I had trouble keeping my cheer, apoligies to Jake if I seemed gloomy after that.
 
Playing guild I should probably have identified that this was a really shooty scenario and picked a crew accordingly. Sidir and some other shooty henchman could probably have scored me show of force while also putting some real pressure on his crew and I should probably have gone for a second trapper. McCabe in collect the bounty is also completely rubbish since he gives out 4 points for being reduced to 0 wounds twice, I hadn’t realized that although Jake was very friendly in pointing this out before we got started. In retrospect I should have picked dear old Lucius and played just as tanky to possibly jump forward last turn and do entourage like he did. Would have been a lot more interesting as a game I think.
 

 

 
All in all I put forward some sloppily designed crews severely lacking any credible threats to my opponent which let them run a little too wild (quite literally in the case of Marcus). I also failed to use my models to the best task a few times. On the bright side the aggressive nature of the games meant I had over half an hour to spare each round so I got to chat a little with my opponents as well as watch the end of some other intense games at the event. Every opponent was also a real treat to face so I had a very good time even though I was loosing big three of my five games. I would have liked to put up a little more of a fight but that’s what you get when you don’t prepare properly. I hope my opponents found me as nice an opponent as I found them. I think I kept myself in a good mood to the bitter end in all my games except the last one against Jake where I mentally gave up too soon. For me that felt like an achievement in itself since I can be a sore loser at times.

Hope you enjoyed!

[Argentbadger]

Nice summary, thank you very much for taking the time to share it.

I think that maybe you're a bit harsh on yourself in your final summary, especially considering that your team did come in the middle of the pack.  I know that there were some really strong and experienced players there.

Did you get to play against any model that you had previously discounted in theory-faux and been amazed at its application?

[Ludvig]

@Argentbadger Thanks, I am usually quite harsh on myself. I did suspect I would be taking a few beatings but I would have hoped for one win at least. I think my witchling handler should really have been a peacekeeper in both my Sonnia games, you need to have something around to keep your opponent honest after they kill Francisco.

 

Most of the lists I faced felt familiar, both Collodi lists had pretty much the standard stuff. I was glad to see a mannequin in Conor's list because I have wondered why more Collodi players don't bring one of those.

Both Marcus lists were also using the strong models most often mentioned around the internet so no real surprises except for the sheer number of cats.

I was kind of surprised by Ross using Big Jake to mostly hang out on his table edge. In retrospect it was a really solid move since it denied me a lot of points for the strategy. I should probably have just ran back to my quarter and left Jake stranded, he is really good in table control strats.

The biggest surprises for me was probably Math doing so well with Ma Tucket and Travis from Trump Card who ran Tara with six void wretches. I had seen that list posted here and felt skeptical but he really dominated his games with that from what I heard.

Apart from those two, most people that I saw seemed to be doing strong standard builds and not trying weird underappreciated models. Quite a few of the players there are normally hosting podcasts or are active in other ways so I guess what I call "standard" sort of comes from them to begin with.

 

[trikk]

Whenever you win or lose on team events, always tell yourself you took the hardest pairing or best opponent

 

Great read!

[enderwiggin]

It shows great character to post losing batreps imo. Thank you for the insight on some of the Euro scene, from us across the pond. The only way to get better at higher level play is learning from mistakes, so you've definitely benefited from the tournament from what I can tell. 

I was wondering how, the Collodi gunline would do in a tourney scene since I've heard relatively little on it's impact and it seems to work otherwise (though it is a tad light on runners in my version).

 

 

With regard to mannequins, I think the mentality is usually "1 more SS and my master gets a semi-permanent buff that doesn't take an upgrade slot and the replacement gets good actions to support the crew" i.e. Effigies. That's how I look at it anyway.

 I do admittedly want to try a go-for-broke Collodi swarm list with max changelings/mannequins/effigies, a dopple, trapper, and then a few upgrades. Comes right at 50 SS with 12 activations, but besides the gunline stuff the killing potential is weak as piss. Obviously if you get stuck in the ball then that changes things to a risky thousand paper cut death scenarios.

[Ludvig]

@enderwiggin cheers for the kind words! Writing the game down and trying to learn from it usually gets me in a more productive mindset than moping.

If I had just had some more ranged prescence I could have killed the trapper and neutered that entire flank somewhat so it's risky to rely so heavily on copying from a single model. I got the trapper down to a single wound first turn but didn't finish it off since I didn't have enough ranged models. The following turns he cheated high, including a red joker, to keep it alive.

In a spam list I think the doppelganger can act as a counter-threat if they send in a big beater but the list might risk not having any credible threats besides Collodi if they can take her out.