Round 1 - Team NZ Ghost Chips - Recon
I was given the choice between playing their Cygnar or their Cryx player, and couldn't jump at the Cryx player fast enough. This Cryx player had Gaspy2 and Goreshade2, neither of them in theme. I dropped Carver, he dropped Goreshade with the following:
Goreshade
-Barathrum
-Nightwretch
-Deathripper
-Withershadow Combine
Cephalyx Overlords
Cephalyx Overlords
Max Soulhunters
Max Croes Cutthroats
Gorman
Scrap Thralls
Scrap Thralls
Scrap Thralls
Machine Wraith
Machine Wraith
Machine Wraith
I felt pretty good about this match-up. I figured he didn't have a whole lot of anti-armour, I could deal with recurring Soulhunters easily enough, and the Croes weren't immensely threatening at Arm 19-20 across the board so long as I didn't let Croe tag Carver.
Deployment
I won the roll to go first. Just set up symmetrically in the middle of the table. My opponent stuck Barathrum on the right, the Croes on the left, Soulhunters in the middle. The Scrap Thralls lined up at the back of the board to act as Feat targets.
A brief note on terrain. It seems like the TOs struggled to get their hands on enough to cover the 25 tables for this event. What terrain did exist was rarely in a significant spot. If I have any criticism of this year's OTC, it's this. Too many boards like this one where there wasn't a single piece of LOS blocking terrain on the table.
Pigs Turn 1
Carver cast Mobility and Batten. I swung all my Splatter Boars left to deal with the Croes. My Battle Boar on the right ran into the zone. I've downed Cryx heavies with Primal'd Battle Boars on Carver's Feat turn before, so I was vaguely aiming for some sort of scenario like that to play out. I had no idea what I should do with my Gremlin Swarms in this game, so they mostly ran into the spots of rubble on the board.
Cryx Turn 1
His army ran forward. One Machine Wraith went into the zone, one into Rubble and within 4" of the left flag. Barathrum moved to my left and Dug In again. Scrap Thralls stayed at the back of his deployment, the Soulhunters kept one member lagging well behind the rest of the unit.
Pigs Turn 2
Carver casts Batten and drops a Fury. He moves a little to the right to avoid Croe. I start dropping AOEs on the Cutthroats, I think I kill two of them. I take a potshot at a Soulhunter with one Splatter Boar, spike the damage roll on the blast damage and kill it. Drop a cloud in the zone so Barathrum can't make a move on my objective. The Gremlin Swarms move away from the Cephalyx.
Cryx Turn 2
I'd neglected to keep all my Warbeasts within 9" of Carver, so my opponent made a go at some Abyssal Gates. He ran an arc node up, hit two Splatter Boars, failed to break armour on one of them, but spun the other around and out of Carver's Control. I think it took all of four shots to kill the Boar, and Croe tagged the one who had resisted the Abyssal Gate to stop it from casting Lucky Shot next turn. The rest of his army moved around, Barathrum backed up a little and Dug In again, the Machine Wraiths continue contesting and one runs right up into the midst of my army.
Pigs Turn 3
I activate Carver, cast Batten, Primal a Splatter Boar, tag my opponent's objective with Hunter's Mark, and send the Splatter Boar in to kill it and score a CP. I had forgotten about Counter Charge, but luckily Barathrum only removed the Boar's Mind. It wasn't using it anyway. The Splatter Boar's shoot one more Cutthroat off the board.
Cryx Turn 3
This time I've remembered to keep all (bar one) of my pigs within 9" of Carver. My opponent arcs another Abyssal Gate into the Silenced Splatter Boar, breaks armour this time, and spins it around. He also removes Lanyssa by trying to hit the Swamp Gobbers with a Hex Blast and scattering onto her instead. He then runs the node to safety. Croes unload into the Splatter Boar but fail to kill it. Barathrum stays in the zone to swing on the Splatter Boar (with just his Power Up Focus), fails to kill it, and he runs Machine Wraiths in front to deny a landing zone. He sends a Soulhunter in to kill the Splatter Boar, forgets to Reposition back afterwards.
Pigs Turn 4
Carver casts Mobility and Batten. One Battle Boar primals another. I do something very stupid and send the Primal'd Battle Boar into the Soulhunter next to Barathrum. I kill it, Overtake into Gorman, trigger Counter Charge, and by a random stupid fluke of good positioning Barathrum isn't able to counter charge to a position outside of the threat range of the nearest War Hog. The Battle Boar is now out of Control and fails to kill Gorman from there. I Primal up the nearest War Hog, send it into Barathrum, kill him pretty easily. The two remaining Splatter Boars kill two Croes on the left and leave a third suffering Corrosion. The one surviving smoke Gobber backs up and builds a little fort in front of Carver with smoke and Battle Boars. My other War Hog charges, staying just barely within 9" of Carver, and kills the arc node on the right.
Sorry for the dreadful picture here.
Cryx Turn 4
My opponent has the Withershadow hit my out of control Battle Boar with Abyssal Gate and turns it around... and also moves it back into my Control Range while freeing up Gorman. In a terribly unfortunate piece of positioning he also blocks one of the Soulhunters from being able to charge my non-Primal'd War Hog. Curse of Shadows gets thrown on that War Hog anyway and the one Soulhunter with a charge lane goes in for some fairly minor damage. A Cephalyx kills the last smoke Gobber, the Croes charge and do a bit of damage to the two Splatter Boars, a Machine Wraith ensures that it will be the Primal'd War Hog's Frenzy target.
Pigs Turn 5
I feed a Gremlin Swarm to a Battle Boar to keep it from frenzying. The Gremlins weren't really necessary for much at this point, I had no fear of him clearing the zone and they weren't going to be getting any Sabotages off any time soon. Carver goes left, casts Batten, and uses his shotgun to clear off some Croes. The badly damaged Splatter Boar in the bottom-left has lost its Body, but it doesn't need it to kill the engaging Croes. The last Croe had already died to a frenzy attack from the second Splatter Boar. The War Hog who didn't frenzy kills the engaging Soulhunter.
I forgot to pick my cloud template up. Oops.
Cryx Turn 5
My opponent forgets to declare he's upkeeping Curse of Shadows, which stuffs up his turn. The Soulhunters to kill a Battle Boar. He reapplies Curse of Shadows to that War Hog, and Abyssal Gates the other one I think. The Machine Wraith in front of Carver gets scared of his magic sword and runs to the other side of the zone. He also either forgets or opts not to Feat, I can't remember if it was a deliberate decision but I was surprised that he chose not to get some Soulhunters back.
Pigs Turn 6
Carver walks over, casts Batten, kills the Machine Wraith at the bottom of the zone. My War Hogs kill a Soulhunter apiece.
Cryx Turn 6
My opponent has the Withershadow Abyssal Gate the Curse of Shadows'd War Hog over next to the flag. Goreshade charges and kills it. The other two Withershadows are engaging my War Hog. My opponent goes to 1 CP.
Pigs Turn 7
Carver walks over, Feats, casts Batten and heals a damage on a pig somewhere with a Fury. He shoots one Withershadow dead. One Battle Boar primals the War Hog, another Primals itself and kills a Withershadow. The War Hog accepts a free strike from the last Withershadow, takes one damage, goes into Goreshade and kills him easily.
In the end, the match-up went more or less exactly as I expected it to. I could have killed the Croes a tad faster if I'd bricked up more, but it was basically a game where neither of us were able to score the entire game. That would have been an issue if I were down on clock, but I believe my opponent was down for most of that game instead. Eventually my opponent made some mistakes and ran out of options.
Always good to start the tournament with an interminable grind