Here's my write up for the tournie:
We started the tournament crazy late. I had us running behind some because my keys had got thrown away and I only realized that after hunting for them over an hour. There was a lunch break before it started, and we were getting to it way late. Which was cool because I got to visit up with friends I haven’t seen in a long time, but still sorry for my part in contributing to that.
We had a pretty good prize support pool this year if I do say so myself. I have renamed some of them, such as calling the Steiner mech a “Totenglocke”:
2015 prize mechs:
Bannson's Raiders: Banshee
Clan Hell's Horses: Thunderfox
Clan Jade Falcon: Hel B
Spirit Cat: MWO Atlas, Warhawk
Clan Sea Fox: Blood Bass
Clan Snow Raven: Deimos, Hammerhead
Clan Wolf: night wolf
Comstar: Owens
Free Worlds League: dave white catapult, MWO Stalker
House Davion: dave headhunter
House Kurita: Jenner
House Liao: MWO Atlas Pan Guan
House Steiner: dollar store MARS mech, but it looked great :D
Rasalhague Dominion: dave white master blaster
Republic of the Sphere: madcat iie in Stone’s Lament paint scheme
We had 7 players. Some people we usually have had a lot of things coming up. One person had prior obligations, one of our travelers had a possible baby birth to think of, another one had a last minute family emergency which I hope is resolved and okay. Having 7 was nice though because there was an opportunity to play most everyone there.
The tournament was 3 rounds of 600 and 2 rounds of 900 point armies. Faction pure with serious recruitment restrictions, our upgrade pieces were legal, and parent and daughter factions (i.e. Republic+Hihghlanders, Dragon’s Fury+House Kurita, etc.) were considered to have the same faction symbols.
Here is what I ran for my 600-point army:
Kuro Ha- Katana Tormak (Into the Breach)+Flail
Hayai Inu Jenner (Champ 'mech from last year)- Travis Sonoma (Into the Breach clone from Falcon's Prey Upgrades)+ RISC Advanced Pulse Module
DF Maxim+ DF Di Schmitt
2x HK Simian Battle Armor (Dom Upgrades)
HK Sniper Arty (Falcon's Prey Upgrades)
3x DF Peasant Companies
Dragon's Fury Faction Pride +1 Attack
My first match was against Rick. Mad props for going Sea Fox Pure. Also, the man did awesome stuff for us preparing for the tournament. He supplied both the Raven Alliance Deimos and the Spirit Cat Masakari. I don't recall his exact army so I gotta go from memory. He was playing 4 light mechs. 2 morrigans and a mjolnir with the Battle Armor Carrying Capacity Pilots, which allowed each mech to carry a Battle Armor Infantry. I think the mjolnir had lance and a morrigan had risc repeating tsemp. While the other had Repair. He had several Sea Fox Clan Battle Armor. There was also a gun nest and several minigun cycles. He also ran an old school Josem Hawker Tiburon. His faction pride was the sea fox priming card that heals or deals a click of damage. We both played the Split Up mission card.
I decided to hit this army fast, before he started priming. I ran my mechs and tank drop in, and started to place an artillery marker. But i did not have my pog. I scrambled while rick took his turn. I came back from the scramble and both morrigans had dfa-ed. 1 had hit the Jenner I think. Needed a 14 or 15 to hit. Rick was just going for an easy prime. Ha!
The Battlemaster informed me i can't bring in a pog after game starts. Rick says its fine. My artillery shot once and hurt Kuro Ha, so kind of a moot point really. I got a little cocky with my hardened armor on kuro ha, forgetting that Lance does impact damage. So i placed a pog over our pieces and turned off armor piercing. The pog drifts, and thanks to the lance hit i am off of armor, so take 5 total from the pog and a Lance hit. My mechs got bruised, but i really played against how hard it is to prime sea fox and dog piled his mechs that were around their prime. Good match, and manly sea fox representation from Rick.
My next match was against Victor, who was playing nova cat. He had tau lioness with tony marvela and experiemental pulse, a vixen with a 3/2/1 pilot and improved targeting, and a variety of infantry (scorchers, cba, etc.) he played subzero temperatures, and i played dust storm, which i had ear-marked for any cats and dogs i might play against.
This match man, this match… I would like to try the armies against each other again. To begin with we were swinging around blocking across opposite sides of the board. I had placed my maxim less than optimally since victor were far away. He ran in with his vixen to base it, leaving no rear arc to deploy the schmitt because of water. Tau Lioness gets in position to use the +2 range faction pride and unload on transport or mechs.
I decide to attack the vixen. A quick measure showed if i could deploy the dischmitt where it was it would have the 8 range needed to shoot the Lioness. I open with the jenner's alpha strike. Need a 10 or 11. Crit hit. I followed up with a close combat assault from kuro ha that destroys the vixen. Di schmitt drops and rolls to hit the lioness. Another crit hit. It was 11 improved against a 22 so i knew it was likely i could hit, but a critical the first time i shot at every piece was just over the top.
Victor was feeling the pain of crazy dice, but he's a pro and kept his cool. He returned fire with the Lioness and targetted the jenner with experimental pulse. Hits 2 shots with no extra heat. I think it destroyed the mech, possibly left it with 1 click. My pieces cool and trade shots with Tau. His make rolls a 1 to break away from infantry that had based it. Tough breaks for Victor on the dice.
Subzero temps didn't figure in too much on this match, but the dust storm was big imho. If victor had that extra range where he could set up a meat shield to block my close combat army i would have had too much to deal with imho. This was another match were the sniper was fairly negligible.
Round 3 was against Bill. He ran a Wolf army I helped him out with, so i knew i was in a bit of trouble with my dust storm being used. It had the clan wolf thor w/ alaric wolf (1/2/2) + anti-personnel, a sw forestry mech with a -/2/1 pilot he got ruled legal before the tournament. He had a padilla with a j-37 to drop it into range, quite a few wolf cba from domination upgrades, at least 1 cw prufier ba, and several other infantry. He was playing the +2 range faction pride, which at least meant he was going to have to hustle for his priming. I played the mission hooray for the underdogs. Bill played Active Volcanoes, which went off like mad. Thank goodness I had a peasant meat shield.
This was a heck of a game. Bloody and ebbed and flowed back and forth for victory conditions. He was first so started winning the arty war at the get go, which was fine since i just ran my pieces away from it. Really fun, tough match. I missed an alpha strike, got several hits in, trying the same strategy of attacking the units before they could prime. He damaged my jenner and tank good, and captured my tank while i was eventually able to pull down his thor with kuro ha. Kuro Ha got a vc3, and at the end i had vc 1,3, and a mission while he had vc 2 and a mission. Like i said, fun, tough match.
Now it was time for 900, and i was taking a calculated risk with a jade falcon army. It was mostly new pieces. I played:
3x shadowhawk iics (falcons prey upgrades) with 2/2/- pilots that grant faction abilities (falcons prey upgrades) and RISC Overchargers
Goonda Jade Hawk champ mech (no jump jets jade hawk variant) with preferred pilot and RISC Saturation Fore Mode
True Grit
I had 2 cards left: Morale Blow and Perfect Day. In previous years whoever I faced in the last match always had a perfect day waiting, so i was chancing that. Jade Falcon dfa armies are incredibly potent, and the most easily neutered by planetary conditions, so i don't use them in tournaments like this much where they can get negated by caverns or dust storm every round.
And I got lucky by drawing a bye for round 4. Yes, perfect day for the last round. Got to visit with Scott and make a few Battlemaster helping decisions.
Round 5 was against Leon. He played Republic. He had:
Duke Nova Cat w/ preferred pilot and additional heat sinks
Esperanza Loki w/preferred pilot and Reengineered laser
Highlander Sniper
RotS Padilla
Lots of Infantry, including
Several Highlander Sniper Teams
ATV Squad
Highlander Special Forces Team
RotS Grey Death Scout Armor
RotS Repair Tech
The mechs came in heavy point wise for him. I asked him if he had enough points on the board, not realizing his mechs were so heavy. I played Perfect Day against his planetary condition, and took out his +1 attack faction pride with True Grit. I ran my shadow hawks behind blocking and prepared to mdfa the mechs, while running my heavy down to take care of his arty. I kept failing my RISC rolls for the extra mdfa range, and he traded shots with the Loki on one of my shadow hawks. He salvaged it while another got into a dfa in, with a follow up shot. The Loki was in trouble heat wise, and I took it out faster than I meant to, exposing my shadow hawk to Duke Nova Cat. Another shadow hawk came in one him while the exposed shadowhawk was damaged far down his dial. I did not want to bring in my Jade Hawk because 2 shadow hawks left some room for maintaining a point lead, but the jade hawk if it was salvaged or destroyed he got the lead. His infantry were taking pot shots at my mechs all game, and set up where I couldn’t really get away from them. The numbers to hit where high, but Improved targeting was everywhere, and he hit several difficult shots. The Jade Hawk had been pinged down, and he repaired a salvaged padilla that kept on taking shots. With a Sniper and Loki versus my Shadow Hawk on the kill list at the ned, I was able to get this.
It was very close ranking wise. I had first, then second and third place were separated by 1 VC. After that, 4th and 5th place were separated by 1 VC. Very tight.
The rankings, and subsequent prize picks, went as follows:
Travis: SC Masakari
Andrew: CW Night Wolf
Bill: Comstar Owens
Rick: Spirit Cat Atlas
Leon: RotS Madcat IIe
Victor: HK Jenner
John: Rasalhague Master Blaster
