Help w/ Tournament Return?

Went 1-2. I had a great time.

The most important take-away was that I let some old bad habits creep in. I scooped in one game I probably could've won, and got myself into a defeatist funk in another game that I could've won. The number 1 rule of Warmachine is to never give up. This tournament illustrated that in a super constructive way and I'm psyched about doing more competitive play this year.

Ended up running:

[Maelok 1] Maelok the Dreadbound [+28]
[Theme] The Blindwater Congregation
- Blind Walker [10]
- Bull Snapper [0(5)]
- Dracodile [36]
- Gatorman Soul Slave [0(5)]
Gatorman Witch Doctor [4]
Gatorman Witch Doctor [4]
Swamp Gobber Chef [1]
Gatorman Posse (max) [16]
Gatorman Posse (max) [16]
Gatorman Posse (max) [16]

and

[Barnabas 1] Bloody Barnabas [+28]
[Theme] Will Work for Food
- Blackhide Wrastler [16]
- Boneswarm [7]
- Boneswarm [7]
- Ironback Spitter [14]
- Ironback Spitter [14]
- Targ [0(4)]
Alten Ashley [0(6)]
Bog Trog Mist Speaker [0(4)]
Dahlia Hallyr [17]
Kwaak Slickspine & Gub, Croak Sorcerers [4]
Swamp Gobber Chef [1]
Boil Master & Spirit Cauldron [5]
Farrow Valkyries [8]
Farrow Valkyries [8]
Swamp Gobber Bellows Crew [2]

Round 1 v. Anamag

My first opponent ran Anamag with a Blightbringer, two units each of Warmongers and Chosen, and sundry others. I dropped Maelok. I've never played against Anamag or Chosen and my opponent never ran his against Maelok, so we were both excited to learn some things. Game ended up being a slug fest. We both sort of lumbered into the middle of the field and ground it out. I don't think anybody scored points. My opponent didn't realize that Blightbringer's aura expires at start of turn. He made a bunch of order-of-activation errors by using his units before he got his STR buff out.

At one point, he brought his Blightbringer against my Dracodile and came up short. (Side note: why does that thing have 5 FURY?) However, he did cripple my Body which I totally forgot about until I started attacking. Dracodile should've Snacked a warmonger next to him before wailing on the Blightbringer, but the dumb thing survived the first attack and Toughed the second, so I wasted a bunch of effort trying to correct my not-healing-the-Drac mistake.

Next turn, he finished off my Drac and I was clearly behind with no chance of ever getting even a long-odds assassination run off. I broke one of my main rules and scooped, but that was a mistake. During the wait to the next round I read up on the clock rules and then realized that I probably could've killed the Blightbringer on my turn and then stalled out since I was ahead on clock and he probably couldn't have scored more than one point per turn.

Had a pleasant chat after the game about the match up.

Round 2 v. Bradigus

Bradigus brought a Well (which I'd never seen before), Megs, a Guardian, a Warden, a few light Wolds, and various Blackclads. I played Barnabas mostly just because I wanted to play him and I figured I'd drop if I lost two in a row anyway. Of course, his feat was worthless against a bunch of Steady boys, but the matchup was still ok for me.

Alten Ashley started off as MVP, those Monster Hunter shots just wrecked the Spirit from one of his Wardens before it got close enough to do anything useful.

At one point I sent a totally-loaded Boneswarm at his Well and came up way short on killing it. Should've run the math beforehand, I didn't realize that thing had so many boxes. As high as you can jack Boneswarm P+S, I often forget to account for the small number of attacks (especially if you're going to try and rely on an Overtake to get into position).

Mid-game, my opponent left Bradigus on 0 camp after his Feat and slid back to what he thought was safety. I engineered a turn in which I could've gotten a Rage + Corpse-loaded Boneswarm onto Brad with 3 attacks using Warpath and Overtake. However, I confused myself mid-turn and left Barney too far back so the Boneswarm would've been out of Control. Instead, I ended up killing Megalith and dominating the left half of the table while leaving enough on the other side to gum up his works. Synergy isn't that helpful if I've got 3 Valks spread around and the Guardian can only reach one of them per activation.

He was ahead on attrition but I was ahead on points and I was WAY ahead on clock. So in the last two rounds I started doing quick activations to secure my control points and jam his beasts. I won on clock.

Had another pleasant debrief afterwards. We agreed that he didn't really waste clock, I was just way more efficient. And unlike my first round, once I recognized that I could win on clock and optimized for that, it put a lot of pressure on him.

Round 3 v. Krueger and the Birds

Last round I dropped Maelok into Krueger 2 who was running 2 Storm Raptors (one on Una) and a Well. Hadn't encountered the Raptors before and I totally misplayed this game.

I was convinced that the Raptors were just going to trivially assassinate Maelok and I'd never be able to kill them. Turns out, those things are pretty flimsy and -- duh -- Mortality is a nightmare if you manage to cripple Spirit or Mind.

Krueger really overplayed his Feat turn and stood pretty far up with 0 camp. I made a respectable assassination run by Blinding Krueger with the Drac and then using Death Ride -> Blindwalker Animus -> Trample to blast a few Venom shots into Krueger. I threw trash for damage and came up 2 boxes short.

Next turn he brought both Raptors against the Drac and I figured the game was over. So I went all-in on killing one just for the pride and sent Maelok himself after one of them. Maelok and like... 3 Posse charges plus a little Bullsnapper help got the job done. It left Maelok naked and the other Raptor ate him next turn.

In our debrief afterword, we agreed that I got defeatist early on. The Birds didn't really threaten Maelok as long as I kept Death Pact and a couple transfers on hand, and the Birds were natural prey for Mortality and Posse. I should've been more aggressive in trying to shove up the board early so I could claim every scenario element and force the birds to both come against the Drac in such a way that Posse could retaliate against them. I totally overestimated his models and should've spent some time running the "how many Posse to kill a Raptor?" numbers early on instead of playing by mis-calibrated feel.

My opponent was extremely gracious in our post-game chat. Excellent experience overall.