Store Championship at Knights Watch Games went off without a hitch on Saturday!

My thanks to @Budgernaut and the other nine players who attended. We stomped table space all over the store and had a great time. Players were so on top of the rules that I barely had to break from my table to give judges' calls at all.

Faction Representation:

Daqan Lords - 4
Uthuk Y'llan - 3
Waiqar the Undying - 2
Latari Elves - 1

Top Four Scores:

First - Waiqar the Undying - 24 TP, 303 MoV, 2/1
Second - Uthuk Y'llan - 22 TP, 338 MoV, 2/1
Third - Daqan Lords - 20 TP, 267 MoV, 2/1
Fourth - Daqan Lords - 19 TP, 99 MoV, 2/1

Top Four Army Lists:

1.) Waiqar the Undying (199 pts)

- Reanimates 4x3
-- Ardus Ix'Erebus
-- Front Line Carrion Lancer
-- Raven-Standard Bearer
-- Aggressive Drummer
-- Lingering Dead

- Reanimate Archers 2x1
-- Combat Ingenuity

- Reanimate Archers 2x1
-- Combat Ingenuity

- Death Knights 2x1
-- Obcasiam's Gauntlet
-- Rank Discipline

- Carrion Lancer 1x1

2.) Uthuk Y'llan (199 pts)

- Ravos the Everhungry
-- Insatiable Hunger

- Berserkers 3x3
-- Cacophony Reaver
-- Frontline Spined Thresher
-- Raven Tabards
-- Aggressive Shrieker

- Flesh Rippers 2x2

- Spined Threshers 2x2

3.) Daqan Lords (199 pts)

- Lord Hawthorne
-- Sweeping Strikes

- Spearmen 3x2
-- Lance Corporal

- Spearmen 3x2
-- Lance Corporal

- Heavy Crossbowmen 3x1
-- Rank Discipline
-- Tempered Steel

- Heavy Crossbowmen 3x1
-- Rank Discipline
-- Tempered Steel

4.) Daqan Lords (199 pts)

- Oathsworn Cavalry 2x2
-- Wind Rune
-- Bull Pennon

- Spearmen 3x3
-- Citadel Weapons Master
-- Shield Wall
-- Front Line Rune Golem
-- Aggressive Cornicen

- Heavy Crossbowmen 3x1
-- Tempered Steel
-- Marching Cornicen
-- Rank Discipline

- Heavy Crossbowmen 3x1
-- Tempered Steel
-- Marching Cornicen
-- Rank Discipline




Final Four Posing Masterfully

I did somewhat fail in that I didn't really get any shots of the armies on the tables... alas, this oversight haunts me. We had some gorgeous armies, and I fielded a fairly large Waiqar force with nothing but painted models

Oh well, we've got two more coming up, I'm sure there'll be plenty of pictures as the grudge matches begin!

As I stated in a different thread, I went 2-1 in the tournament and ended up in 6^th place. The top 6 players were all 2-1, so I was at the bottom of that list. I love this game, but I’m starting to feel that tournaments aren’t really my thing. I get so nervous, even though I’m not really aiming to win anything. I think for me, it’s the pressure of knowing that any mistakes I make could impact someone’s standing in the tournament, so I’m super nervous about making mistakes. In casual games, mistakes happen but you just work through them. As long as both players have fun, both players win.

As the tournament began, I reflected on how much experience I have with this game – not much! I have played two 200-point games of Daqan vs. Waiqar with Parakitor and I’ve played one 200-point game of Uthuk vs. Waiqar against Parakitor. Only one of those was live; the other two were online. I played a skirmish game against TheWiseGuy using video chat and I played a skirmish match at a store the week the game released. Aside from that, I have a handful of games against myself. As much as I am invested in this game, it hasn’t translated to a lot of actual game time. I don’t know of any other Runewars players in Laredo, and there aren’t any real game stores (just an anime shop that caters to ccgs), so I had to trek 2.5 hours to San Antonio for this tournament.

Without anymore preamble, the battle report.

My list:
Ravos the Everhungry (40) [52]
-Fear Incarnate (5)
-Viscera Goblet (7)

Berserkers 3x2 (37) [48]
-Psychosis Siren (7)
-Bannerscamp (4)

Berserkers 2x1 (16) [18]
-Raven Tabards (2)

Flesh Rippers 2x1 (22) [22]

Flesh Rippers 2x1 (22) [22]

Spined Threshers 1x1 (18) [18]

Spined Threshers 1x1 (18) [18]

TOTAL: 198

In my practice game against Parakitor, I had a 3x3 Berserkers unit, but Psychosis Siren got sniped out after I used her the first time. I designed this list so that I could screen my Psychosis Siren on approach. In hindsight, I probably could have let it be a 2x2 since I really didn’t want to engage with it; I just wanted to get a bunch of morale tests off and have Fear Incarnate translate those into damage.

I opted for an MSU-style list for a couple of reasons. 1) It helped me get to 200 points. 2) I forgot about the rule that if you have more units than your opponent, you place units until you are equal. I had been hoping to get an edge in the deployment game. 3) I wanted to be able to react to my opponent more. I felt that by having more activations, I’d have more flexibility to respond to my opponent’s tactics.

Game 1
Deployment: Careful Approach
Objective: Demoralize Their Forces

I faced Colby, the 3^rd place finalist. I’m not sure I’ve ever played on Careful Approach before. This one was tough. Dimoran Fissure got placed right between the corners of the two deployment areas, so there was no easy way out. I sent a Spined Thresher along my board edge to the right and the rest of my army up north. He had a block of 3x2 Spearmen facing each direction, and each block had the 3x1 Crossbowmen behind them but staggered by 1 tray so they could see around the Spearmen. I had no idea how to approach that. I should have been more careful, but I didn’t want to spend my first round sitting still and waiting, so I tried to attack him. It was like attacking a wall of steel. It didn’t do me any good at all. It ended with a full-win for my opponent.

I think part of my worry was that Ravos would do too much damage to my army if I just waited. In hindsight, I should have just taken the 7 wounds. It would have been fine. If I could have been more patient and reformed after getting around the Dimoran Fissure so that my Psychosis Siren was screened again, I think we could have started doing serious hurt to his army. As it is, I’m not sure how much damage I ended up doing.

The other shocker for me was the objective. I’ve played Demoralize Their Forces a few times and I’ve seen maybe 1 flank charge happen, if that. Somehow, I got completely out-played such that my opponent scored 4 objective tokens on me and I got only a single 1. Way more flank charges happened than I’d seen before.

Game 2
Deployment: Hammer and Anvil
Objective: Supply Raid

My opponent was Lydia, and she was playing an Uthuk Y’llan Army. She said she loved Flesh Rippers. Sure enough, she had 8 trays of them! I guess some people just don’t want to wait for the expansions. I didn’t write down her list, but here’s what I can reconstruct.

Flesh Rippers 2x2 (38) [42]
-Rank Discipline (4)

Flesh Rippers 2x2 (38) [42]
-Rank Discipline (4)

Spined Threshers 2x1 (28) [28]

Ravos the Everhungry (40) [43]
-Insatiable Hunger (3)

Berserkers 3x2 (37) [45]
-Warsprinter (3)
-Shield Wall (5)

TOTAL: 200 points

We both set up a line of objective tokens on the left side, both hoping to take it with our Flesh Rippers. I didn’t realize that was her plan until she placed her final 2x2 Flesh Rippers unit on that side of the map. My two 2x1 Flesh Rippers felt quite a bit intimidated by that. However, I concocted a plan. If I could get her to engage one of my Flesh Rippers at an angle, she would square up and expose her flank to the other. Together, we could wear her down and steal the objective tokens. It was working great, until I made stupid error. I resolved a morale test and should have just went with Rising Panic, but I chose to go with Flee in Terror. Unfortunately, I made her get out of our grasp and I was never able to catch up. Rather, when one of my units finally caught up, it got slaughtered and she stole the one objective token it had. That unit of hers had 5 objective tokens at the end! The other Flesh Rippers unit of mine decided not to pursue and support the battle taking place in the middle of the table instead. That was a mistake.

The middle of the battle was just a blood bath. Things were just getting engaged and dying left and right. Ravos engaged her 6-tray Berserkers and she exhausted Shield Wall to save 3 figures. Excellent play! At one point, I told myself to use Viscera Goblet to heal one of the 3 wounds on Ravos after his activation, but I forgot. Right after his activation, he took 4 wounds and died. If I had just remembered, he would have had one more round to decimate the Berserkers he was engaged with! At the end of the battle, I think she just had one tray of Flesh Rippers left (the one with the objective tokens) and maybe a few Berserkers. Or maybe I took them out with my Flesh Rippers. I can’t remember. I had 2 trays of Flesh Rippers, a Spined Thresher, and 2 Berserkers from my Psychosis Siren unit. What a brutal finish! I think the score ended up 252 to 221 in my favor. Very close match!

I must say, I’ll have to consider running Rank Discipline on my Flesh Rippers like my opponent did. It saved her rolls so many times, and I had a few blank-outs with my Flesh Rippers. But I like being able to setup flank-charges with my Flesh Rippers, so I don’t know.

Game 3
Deployment: Standoff
Objective: Bounty

My opponent, Jeremy, came down from Austin for the tournament. He was a nice guy and it was good to face someone else who traveled for the tournament. He mustered a Daqan Army.

Lord Hawthorne (34) [39]
-Sweeping Strikes (5)

Kari Wraithstalker (34) [41]
-Fortuna’s Dice (6)
-Wraithstep (1)

Oathsworn Cavalry 2x3 (46) [65]
-Heraldic Surcoats (5)
-Tempered Steel? (3)
-File Leader (6)
-Moment of Inspiration (5)

Deepwood Archers 2x2
-Dispatch Runner (7)
-Wind Rune (6)
-Rank Discipline (4)

TOTAL: 190?

I’m not sure I’m remembering everything right. I know he did not have Shield of Margath, but he really should have. He nominated Kari Wraithstalker as his bounty. I nominated my 6-tray Berserkers unit. This game was really dependent on setup. Here is an image of a critical moment in the game. Hopefully it will help you understand the deployment.

The Ransacked Manor was placed about a tray and a half from the edge of my right deployment marker, so there was enough room for Ravos to run up the side of it. I set a line of units across my front read to take the manor or fight whatever tried to enter it. That line extended past the manor so that my 2x1 Berserkers were hanging out in the open on the left. My 3x2 Berserkers were behind the line. The Latari Memorial was to the right of my deployment area, so I hoped to shift into range 1 to gain an inspiration token from it to ready Psychosis Siren later, but he set Kari up straight across from Ravos and I was afraid of getting Psychosis Siren sniped, so I shifted the other way instead.

In the first round, Kari decided she didn’t like the look of Ravos, so she reformed to go to my left, across Jeremy’s edge of the play area. Ravos didn’t like that. He ran forward at speed 4 to try and catch her, managing to get into range 1 and dealing a wound. One of my Spined Threshers took the manor on turn one and used its skill to get the points in round 2. Kari tried to move away from Ravos with a 3 march. Ravos used a 3 charging turn to try and catch her, but he wasn’t close enough to deal a wound. In round 3, my Spined Thresher did a 1-speed march at initiative 3 to exit the terrain, followed by a 1-speed march bonus action. This not only evaded the firing arc of the Deepwood Archers, but it blocked Kari’s escape route and she ended up colliding with the Spined Thresher and taking a panic token. She chose to square up behind him. Ravos charged to the position you see in the photo, but hadn’t reformed yet. This dealt another wound to Kari. In round 4, Ravos reformed for a future charge. Myy Spined Thresher attacked and was able to reroll one die because of the panic token. He dealt the two wounds necessary to finish Kari off, scoring 75 points for the bounty.

What was happening on the other side of the board? Hawthorne came in fast and charged a Spined Thresher. However, both of my Flesh Ripper units then flanked him and tore him to shreds. He really needed Shield of Margath. Sweeping Strikes did deal some extra damage to the Flesh Rippers, though. And that Spined Thresher was limping after the entanglement with Hawthorne. The Cavalry were on my far left in my opponent’s deployment zone and they came in fast. I was going to charge their flank with my Spined Thresher, but they reformed to face him head-on. So now I had a unit of Flesh Rippers and my Spined Thresher staring down a 3x2 of horses. My opponent opted for the 3-initiative attack because of File Leader. My Spined Thresher charged and got wiped out. My Flesh Ripper had dialed in a melee attack, expecting a charge. Instead, my mandatory speed-1 march caused me to collide with the Oathsworn Cavalry and then allowed me to attack! Because this wasn’t a charge, File Leader didn’t trigger! I think I only took out a single horse, though. And the Archers started pelting that poor unit of Flesh Rippers and they were not long for the world. Meanwhile, the archers used Wind Rune to dance around in the back until they got pinned by Ravos, and my 6-tray unit of Berserkers kept shifting back and forth, not knowing whether to go try to make the enemy cavalry panic, or just stay far away. I finally got my last unit of Flesh Rippers to act as a speed bump to guard my Psychosis Siren unit. Unfortunately, red runes weren’t with me and it wasn’t until the last two round that I was finally in range to use Psychosis Siren. It didn’t do much because their Armor 3 meant I took out a single horse at most with Fear Incarnate, which I eventually did do with a Flee In Terror morale card on round 8. I believe Ravos was able to obliterate the Deepwood Archers. Ravos and the Psychosis Berserkers survived at full health, so my opponent earned 98 points to my 221 (10 points from Ransacked Manor, 75 from Bounty, and the rest from his army, though again, I don’t have his list quite right).

Reflections

Don’t miss triggers. Bad things happen when you do that. I like this list well enough, but I’ve decided Psychosis Siren really needs support of Bloodfire Witch. If you can do the panic tests out to range 4, you can really mess up your opponent’s army. Instead, I had a lot of range-1 morale tests, so was only affecting 1 or 2 units at a time. It was very different from my test-match with Parakitor. I’ll probably try something different next tournament, not so much for the winning, but to try something new.

Overall, it was great tournament with a bunch of fun players and a great atmosphere. I’m very glad I went (and very glad my wife and two kids put up with waiting outside the store for an hour as we finished the last round and dealt out prizes before our 2.5-hour drive back home).

EDIT: I'm the guy in the suit in the pictures above. I don't normally wear suits to tournaments, but it was my church branch's day to attend the San Antonio temple, so I did that in the morning before the tournament.

Woohoo! Go Waiqar! Glad to see the undead snag a Store Championship. Thanks for the reports, all!

The ranks of the undead grew with all the kills. This makes me happy. Hopefully I'll also proudly represent Waiqar at my SC

Nice reports. Between the NC Latari players skipping the streamed tournament last weekend due to weather and the 1-player representation here, I'm a bit disappointed to not see how Latari players are shaking out now that they're not the new hotness and have had a little time to settle in and tweak lists and play opponents with experience playing against them. I keep waffling between purely speculative approaches for my SC in Feb since the store's been slow to support regular play and my normal opponent's schedule has been a bit busy lately.

3 hours ago, kaffis said:

Nice reports. Between the NC Latari players skipping the streamed tournament last weekend due to weather and the 1-player representation here, I'm a bit disappointed to not see how Latari players are shaking out now that they're not the new hotness and have had a little time to settle in and tweak lists and play opponents with experience playing against them. I keep waffling between purely speculative approaches for my SC in Feb since the store's been slow to support regular play and my normal opponent's schedule has been a bit busy lately.

I wonder if that is because established players may have stuck with one of the first two factions. I bought into the game with the Elves, doing an Essentials pack and starter. I've just tonight completed a second game with them. Looking around at our local game group, of which I'm now the 5th, it looks like 2 Daqan and 2 Waiqar, and they were just impressed that they got to see the Elves on the table at full faction, and not merely because Kari added an Archers group. I think the Elves still have to find more players.

They mentioned on the stream that the Latari players they expected to see didn't make it out due to the icy roads NC had last weekend. You're probably right that there aren't as many folks with Latari as their one faction, overall, though. I know I bought into a couple cores to play and learn the system while I had to wait for them to release, so I've got other stuff, as well, even though Latari have my heart.

14 hours ago, kaffis said:

Nice reports. Between the NC Latari players skipping the streamed tournament last weekend due to weather and the 1-player representation here, I'm a bit disappointed to not see how Latari players are shaking out now that they're not the new hotness and have had a little time to settle in and tweak lists and play opponents with experience playing against them. I keep waffling between purely speculative approaches for my SC in Feb since the store's been slow to support regular play and my normal opponent's schedule has been a bit busy lately.

We do have a few Latari players here in NC that normally come out (usually they do quite well). I would say perhaps 3 out of the 15 or so that play RW here are Latari.

FWIW, Latari is a faction in a pretty good place. They could definitely use some variety through the addition of the Darnanti Warriors (and whatever the seventh unit is), but Aliana, Scions, and Deepwood Archers are among the stronger units in the game.

Also--I love the info and battlereports in this thread. You all in Texas have a very different meta than we do in NC, but I love seeing the variety! It looks like you have a good crew of people playing and a cool store. Thanks for sharing!

2 minutes ago, JGrand said:

FWIW, Latari is a faction in a pretty good place. They could definitely use some variety through the addition of the Darnanti Warriors (and whatever the seventh unit is), but Aliana, Scions, and Deepwood Archers are among the stronger units in the game.

Absolutely. Most of my indecision is being spoiled for choice without a lot of opportunities to just see how options work on the table locally. I definitely want to see the Darnati release, as party of my issue comes from the inconvenient inability to put a banner I want in the list in anything but the worst size for (non-Hawthorne) Archers.