This was the largest gathering of WM/HORDES players that I have been a part of, ever. Supposedly this is the largest event in SoCal since SoCal GenCon 2006, though I believe it might have been bigger than even that.
My legs are still sore from standing all day. My back has recovered from leaning over a table all day. I slept in practically all day on Sunday from the mental and physical exhaustion of the event. It was all worth it! I got in 4 good games, met a lot of people, caught up with old friends and got to talk a lot of WARMACHINE – something I do not get to do often anymore :(
For playing with half of my army for the first time, I did pretty well going 3-1. They were all pretty much “bad matchups”. P+S 10 arrows don’t do much against non-living models and jacks, and my first opponent was Karchev and 5 jacks. Concentrating fire on Karchev and above-average dice rolling (thank you eLylyth’s “signs and portents”) won me that game.
My next opponent was eDeneghra and lots of undead. I got swamped by his army and pinned down by eDenny’s feat while losing my entire unit of Archers to her Dark Seduction. I barely eeked out a victory by capping eDenny with my Warbeasts, who all had added range due to eLylyth’s feat.
Round 3 was against a player I face at practically every big tournament that I have been to. eHaley nerfed my army with her Deceleration and his army made it very, very difficult to get a bead on her. I threw all I had at a very poor attempt to bring her down. Though my army can dish out the damage, they still need to hit without extra dice. He did a great job of tying up my Archers to prevent them from CRA’ing effectively.
Round 4 pitted me against another Cygnar player using eStryker. It was primarily an infantry-heavy force utilizing Cygnar’s melee units – 2x Stormblades, Stormguard, and Sword Knights. I popped my feat the first turn to cut through a lot of his infantry, but eStryker had a Deceleration-like spell (maybe it IS Deceleration, and eHaley’s spell has a different name). Actually ran out of time (with bonus time too) and Lylyth would only have 3 Fury for the following turn :/ Ran out of time again and Lylyth was stuck in the open with all her fury. Stryker charged in and only hit once, which she easily transferred away. She shot and killed Stryker easily since he had already done more than half the damage to himself (by overpowering his armor).
All in all, it was plenty of fun! So much so that I’m “active” on many of the forums again. Hopefully this “high” will last until next year!