Post by darkangeldentist on May 19, 2019 22:42:40 GMT
This weekend saw 180 people attend the Welsh masters (190 tickets sold but ten people didn't show). In terms of numbers Cygnar had some representation with 13 people fielding them.
Results are here: Welsh Masters on tiebreak
The bad news, Cygnar didn't do too well. A 32.2% win rate is pretty bad and best in faction only barely finished in the top half. So Cygnar is definitely not top drawer any more.
Good news, they are still fun to play and I found that I was the weak link more often than my list. I felt that I always had a chance in all my games and made plenty of mistakes. First game was a perfect example where I forgot to cast horsepower with Kraye on feat turn. Also left a minuteman needlessly inside of threat range top of 1 but that did at least draw out a toro and expend the renegade's one-use rocket. Those kind of mistakes hurt Cygnar really hard and even though it didn't auto-lose me the game it made me fret over how to come back from it and waste time on clock. (I play slow and it hurts me a lot in competitive play.)
I'll be extremely brief because I don't want to spend ages on battle reports but I took Kraye (heavy metal), Sturgis (Sons of the tempest) and Haley3 (Storm division). I dropped Kraye all but 2 rounds because he's the caster I'm most comfortable with and I don't play a lot. Sturgis and Haley got dropped once each.
Round 1: Kraye vs Magnus2 playing Recon2. Loss, screwed up feat turn which put me on the back foot and I ended up losing on clock. Highlight was watching the trencher mechanics spend 3 turns dismantling a toro whilst a cyclone threw it outside of Magnus's control range.
Round 2: Kraye vs Sorscha1 playing Stand-off. Win on assassination. I went first but he still ran towards with a full demo corps up the centre with their character CA. I shot all of them dead save for the character who was left on 2 boxes so my opponent went for an assassination. Sorscha windrushed up, advanced to just get line of sight to Kraye to freeze him and his Man-o-war chariots tried to kill Kraye. His dice weren't kind and Kraye lived for me to counter-assassinate.
Round 3: Kraye vs Syvestro playing spread the net. Loss to assassination. I got careless thinking that 2 camp would dissuade my opponent from a top of 2 assassination since he could only get 3 attacks on to Kraye. I was wrong and his dice were hot. Kraye died.
Round 4: Kraye vs Old Witch2 (Khador) playing mirage. He was fielding wolves of winter with 5 units of doom reavers. My dice were not kind to me whilst he were. Attrition wasn't going very well but in the end I clocked. Did kill a lot of doom reavers though.
Round 5: Haley3 vs Sturm&Drang playing the pit 2. Win on scenario. I went first but my opponent forgot he was going second and thought he had another turn before we started scoring. In fairness the dracodile was penned in by arcane shielded storm lances who were within temporal disruption range so a lot of effort was spent just removing most of them after e-leaps had killed Dahlia.
Round 6: Kraye vs Kaya 3 playing Invasion. Win due to opponent's concession. Kraye got to live the dream. Feat turn saw everything go right and I removed 3 heavies and a scarsfell griffon leaving the only things in range to retaliate on anything Kaya and a gorax with Lord of the feast able to swing on a centurion or perhaps a cyclone. Kraye was completely safe and he was barely out of his deployment zone.
Round 7: Sturgis vs Old Witch3 (Grymkin) playing Stand-off. Win due to battery death/concession. First time I have ever seen this happen but my opponent's phone and tablet were low on battery and they didn't last the game. Sturgis and my army just about managed to drag in and shoot down his only skin and moans so, although he was way up on clock he had to go for an assassination on Sturgis with only Old Witch and a clockatrice to attempt it with. It didn't go well and his dice weren't hot (although not as cold as mine had been!) so Sturgis lived and left Old witch with no fury two inches from stormwall and no transfers. He conceded leaving me with a 4-3 win record.
I played with lots of mistakes and had a very full mix of good and bad luck through-out the weekend but enjoyed myself a lot. My thanks to all my opponents and to the event organisers, the Welsh is an awesome event that I can only recommend attending. Kraye is enormous fun to play, I ought to have more confidence putting down Sturgis and Haley3 but Kraye is just my favourite caster. At least I can say I put everyone down on the table and they all did get at a win for me.
Results are here: Welsh Masters on tiebreak
The bad news, Cygnar didn't do too well. A 32.2% win rate is pretty bad and best in faction only barely finished in the top half. So Cygnar is definitely not top drawer any more.
Good news, they are still fun to play and I found that I was the weak link more often than my list. I felt that I always had a chance in all my games and made plenty of mistakes. First game was a perfect example where I forgot to cast horsepower with Kraye on feat turn. Also left a minuteman needlessly inside of threat range top of 1 but that did at least draw out a toro and expend the renegade's one-use rocket. Those kind of mistakes hurt Cygnar really hard and even though it didn't auto-lose me the game it made me fret over how to come back from it and waste time on clock. (I play slow and it hurts me a lot in competitive play.)
I'll be extremely brief because I don't want to spend ages on battle reports but I took Kraye (heavy metal), Sturgis (Sons of the tempest) and Haley3 (Storm division). I dropped Kraye all but 2 rounds because he's the caster I'm most comfortable with and I don't play a lot. Sturgis and Haley got dropped once each.
Round 1: Kraye vs Magnus2 playing Recon2. Loss, screwed up feat turn which put me on the back foot and I ended up losing on clock. Highlight was watching the trencher mechanics spend 3 turns dismantling a toro whilst a cyclone threw it outside of Magnus's control range.
Round 2: Kraye vs Sorscha1 playing Stand-off. Win on assassination. I went first but he still ran towards with a full demo corps up the centre with their character CA. I shot all of them dead save for the character who was left on 2 boxes so my opponent went for an assassination. Sorscha windrushed up, advanced to just get line of sight to Kraye to freeze him and his Man-o-war chariots tried to kill Kraye. His dice weren't kind and Kraye lived for me to counter-assassinate.
Round 3: Kraye vs Syvestro playing spread the net. Loss to assassination. I got careless thinking that 2 camp would dissuade my opponent from a top of 2 assassination since he could only get 3 attacks on to Kraye. I was wrong and his dice were hot. Kraye died.
Round 4: Kraye vs Old Witch2 (Khador) playing mirage. He was fielding wolves of winter with 5 units of doom reavers. My dice were not kind to me whilst he were. Attrition wasn't going very well but in the end I clocked. Did kill a lot of doom reavers though.
Round 5: Haley3 vs Sturm&Drang playing the pit 2. Win on scenario. I went first but my opponent forgot he was going second and thought he had another turn before we started scoring. In fairness the dracodile was penned in by arcane shielded storm lances who were within temporal disruption range so a lot of effort was spent just removing most of them after e-leaps had killed Dahlia.
Round 6: Kraye vs Kaya 3 playing Invasion. Win due to opponent's concession. Kraye got to live the dream. Feat turn saw everything go right and I removed 3 heavies and a scarsfell griffon leaving the only things in range to retaliate on anything Kaya and a gorax with Lord of the feast able to swing on a centurion or perhaps a cyclone. Kraye was completely safe and he was barely out of his deployment zone.
Round 7: Sturgis vs Old Witch3 (Grymkin) playing Stand-off. Win due to battery death/concession. First time I have ever seen this happen but my opponent's phone and tablet were low on battery and they didn't last the game. Sturgis and my army just about managed to drag in and shoot down his only skin and moans so, although he was way up on clock he had to go for an assassination on Sturgis with only Old Witch and a clockatrice to attempt it with. It didn't go well and his dice weren't hot (although not as cold as mine had been!) so Sturgis lived and left Old witch with no fury two inches from stormwall and no transfers. He conceded leaving me with a 4-3 win record.
I played with lots of mistakes and had a very full mix of good and bad luck through-out the weekend but enjoyed myself a lot. My thanks to all my opponents and to the event organisers, the Welsh is an awesome event that I can only recommend attending. Kraye is enormous fun to play, I ought to have more confidence putting down Sturgis and Haley3 but Kraye is just my favourite caster. At least I can say I put everyone down on the table and they all did get at a win for me.