Tournament Report: 50 Point Steamroller with 3Makeda and Xerxis

Geneguard and I attended a 50 point Steamroller at Gamer's Gauntlet this past weekend. I had intended to have the Mammoth done in time for this tournament but just didn't get it even started. I did finish a reptile hound and a unit of Swordsmen with UA so I used those in both my lists.

I have been focusing on Skorne this year with the intention of learning them well enough to take them to Warmachine Weekend for fun and debauchery. I've really been using the rule of cool when choosing my warlocks with Skorne so far. I tried Rasheth but just couldn't figure him out so I've been focusing on beatsticks. I painted 3Makeda and Xerxis and absolutely love the models. Next on my list will be pMorghoul and Naaresh.



My lists were as follows:

Tyrant Xerxis (*5pts)
* Basilisk Krea (4pts)
* Tiberion (11pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
Cataphract Cetrati (Leader and 5 Grunts) (11pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Praetorian Swordsmen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Praetorian Swordsmen Officer & Standard (2pts)
Paingiver Task Master (2pts)

This is a Xerxis brick that moves forward and takes the hit then hits back. I felt like the Gatormen were a great include with the task master over the other cataphracts because of their special rules. The swordsmen were in there for the first time - I feel like with two attacks they're a sweet Fury target.

Makeda and the Exalted Court (*2pts)
* Reptile Hound (2pts)
* Archidon (7pts)
* Bronzeback Titan (10pts)
* Titan Gladiator (8pts)
* Aptimus Marketh (3pts)
Gatormen Posse (Leader and 4 Grunts) (9pts)
Paingiver Beast Handlers (Leader and 3 Grunts) (2pts)
Praetorian Swordsmen (Leader and 9 Grunts) (6pts)
* Praetorian Swordsmen Officer & Standard (2pts)
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew (Leader and 1 Grunt) (1pts)
Paingiver Task Master (2pts)

Paintvagrant gave me some pretty good advice on this one when I played him. I got shot all to hell and couldn't do anything about it. If I could re-make the list I'd probably switch the Archidon for a Krea, perhaps another Reptile Hound, and a Feralgeist. The Krea will help get the army across the field.

The idea for this one was basically run straight at the lines and use Marketh to get Makeda in close and then have Makeda and company beat the everliving hell out of everything with Vortex of Desruction.

We played four rounds with about a dozen people. It was cool because most of the great teachers were there to provide advice.

First Round

I had Jake H. from Lansing in the first round. He had a Borka brick with Kriel Warriors, Champs, and Tuffaloes. I chose Xerxis. After his initial jam across the field I felt like I had a decent opportunity to get back at him. Turns out most of his dudes were huge armor and had Hero's Tragedy:

• Hero's Tragedy - An enemy warrior model that destroys an affected model with a melee attack is knocked down at the end of his activation. Great on tarpit units, making them even more of a headache for your opponent by making a mockery of his front line.

SUPER annoying, especially when they're going up against my swordsmen with two hand weapons. I should have thought about this and deployed my gatormens across from the warriors instead; with the paingiver they'd have No Sleeping on the Job and not be knocked down. 

Jake just ground me into the dirt and scored enough control points to take the game. I scored two points.

Second Round

*BYE*

Third Round

My third round match up was against Jack who brought Mortenebra and a bunch of Cryx jacks and explodey dudes. I chose Makeda3 so I could not be locked in for the final round, although I intended to use Makeda3 again just because I wanted to learn her.

I moved up the field and so did Jack. He crashed into my lines and did a significant amount of damage but not enough to kill my beasts, so I counter attacked with Vortex of Destruction and absolutely annihilated his jacks who came across. I killed four jacks in one turn including Deathjack. It was pretty sweet! 

I knew I had to get Mortenebra so I advanced up the field thinking I'd be alright. Makeda had fury and my Gladiator was still pretty well untouched. He shot me up with a shooty jack, hit me with a bunch of sprays, then a seether came down and ended Makeda. I just got too aggressive =(

Final Round

My final game was against Paintvagrant's Cyngar with Seige Brisbane and Stormwall. I was pumped to play against him because we haven't played in a while. I chose my 3Makeda list again. This was probably a bad idea since he was playing Cyngar (shooty) and I had Xerxis still with his brick list, but I wanted to get more experience with 3Makeda.

The game went really badly for me from the beginning. I put the Archidon out front hoping it'd be a target and it got killed REALLY fast. I hoped it would have stayed alive a little longer. PV had a wall on his side of the board to hide Siege behind so he did so and just advanced up the field, picking my beasts, gatormens, and swordsmen apart.

I did manage to score one scenario point and that was key. PV had to advance Siege out from his wall to get a control point in case dice down was called. 

Near the end of the game I had barely anything left although my Bronzeback had removed the right side of Stormwall. I moved up Marketh (after he survived an entire round of shooting) and cast Eliminator on some stormblades; this has the amazing built-in benefit of allowing Makeda to move 2" for each dude killed. He killed two guys so she moved 4" away from my flag toward Stormwall and Siege.

She then charged a Stormblade and killed him. I forgot to pop her feat before hand so she did it after she killed that dude. She had six focus. She cast Eliminator using blood boon (cast a spell for free after killing a model) and boosted damage on three guys and boosted the attack roll. She managed to kill three stormblades, getting 6" of movement, returning a fury to her from her feat, and moving into melee with Siege :P

Marketh had upkept Vortex of Destruction on her so she was basically a P+S17 Weapon Master at this point. I had three fury to spend on killing Siege. It was pretty dang close since I rolled a triple-one on the damage roll on the second attack. Crazy, but I managed to kill Siege.

PV had definitely done what he was supposed to do - he killed my beasts, killed my units, I barely had anything left. I got lucky with some Eliminators and Makeda3 did what she was supposed to do.

All in all it was a great tournament and I had a lot of fun. I have to admit seeing Makeda do what she does was pretty damn amazing and made my hobby month. Sorry PV :P