ICON is South Africa's Gencon. It is held in a hall in the north of Johannesburg in July every year. It has about 10 Vendors and 2 rooms of Magic players, a marquee and hall for Roleplayers, a hall for Fantasy Players and outside in the sunshine the 40K guys get to play. This year the Fantasy turnout was not so great so the warmachine guys got put in with them.
I know it isn't even a 10th of any overseas Cons but it is all we have.
It was a hectic weekend. 4 Games on Saturday and 3 on Sunday.
The Saturday games were played with normal steam roller rules.
Game 1 (Mathew Putter, Everblight, Rhyas) Killbox
Played: Kraye
Man this was a fast. He moved everything up and started harassing my army. I got a "Feat-turn" charge off with my centurion and missed with 3 attacks....man it was unlucky. I did manage to kill the Carni with transfers. I was about to start my next turn when dice down was called and because he had more points in the box I lost...oh well.
Game 2 (Henry Haung, Skorne, Xerxis) Capture the Flag.
Played: Kraye
I can not deal with ARM 22 8 damage block models and this army was full of them this was just one game/army that I looked at and could not think of a way to defeat it...I went for the beasts to try remove all the fury but alas I failed and the way Henry played Xerxis he was very fury efficient. I called my feat with the Ceturnion and the Stormclad charging the front weapon master, multi-wound guys with shield wall and did not kill a single model, i missed most of my attack rolls. This game I lost as well.
Game 3 (Nuno Afonso, Pirates, Bart) Outflank, Outfight, Outlast.
Played: pNemo
Nuno is still trying to figure out his Pirates and has only played a hand full of games. This was a easy enough game for me. I felt bad when I pulsed and only 2 pressgangers survived.....taking Doc and The Boson down with them. I had the two points at the end of his 2nd turn. We carried on playing for fun and I pulsed once more on to Bart and sustained into him till he was dead.
Game won with Max CP.
Game 4 (Mike Geyser, Trollbloods, Grim Angus) The Gauntlet
Played: Kraye
This game is the best game I have had to date. Man is was Hard. Once again High Arm and multiple wounds. He had the stone bearer a full unit of Champs and the battle box with a mauler.
Once again I called my feat and charged the mauler with the Centurion hoping to take him out and hit the champs with the stormclad. WOW, hit the mauler twice out of 5 with 3 dice. Did some damage but was unable to kill him....the Stormclad took out 2 champions but they mad their tough rolls. My hunters were moving along the flank trying to get to Grim but had two Impalers after them.
I the end he move grim up with his force and took out everything but Kraye and the sentinel had 4 blocks left. While the Impaler's moved to hit the Hunters, he critical slammed one of them but missed the other. We both noticed at the exact same time that he had moved EVERTHING out of his box and the smile on my face said it all.
I knew the champs and the mauler would hit Kraye next turn so I moved the Sentinel up to block the path. I then had the hunter run up and moved the other hunter its 6 inches into the box scoring me a point.
He now had 3 beasts on full fury and left the Impaler's with 1 each and one failed its threshold check and frenzied into the other doing a nice bit of damage. The unfrenzied impaler moved into the box and tried to Crit slam one of the hunter out of the box but failed thanks to them being on a hill so Def 16. He also move Grim back on to the edge of the box. He charged the champs in and because of the Sentinel , which died, and only 2 got to Kraye sitting on 4 focus (Arm 21). He then Pushed the Mauler to the max and charged into Kraye. He beat him around like a rag doll but wasn't able to kill him, he even tried to headbutt me but I just smiled thanks to Steady. The axer then tried with a charge but missed with an attack leaving Kraye with 2 wounds left.
I then assigned 2 focus to each Hunter. Slammed the impaler with the 1st hunter out of the box. and walked up to Grim with the 2nd and pushed him out of the box.
Game won with Max CP.
Now because of the two excellent wins I was in the top 8 which allowed me to play in the Hardcore on the Sunday.
SO Sunday was Hardcore....5 min turns.
This was the most intense gaming I have done in a long time, I do not think this is my cup of tea but I will give it another go in future. All games were played with my pNemo list as it was
fully painted.
Game 5 (PJ, Circle of Orboros, Mohsar)
The game went very well I could have stopped the assassination run if I was paying more attention but Alas I failed on my own attempt and got beaten buy a blind old man. Lots of things went a bit wrong but I haven't faced Circle properly before. I will just need to go through their stuff for next time.
Game was lost and so I was knocked out.
Game 6 (Chad Parsons, Everblight, PThaggy)
I'n this game I realised how horrible the time limits/priorities are I charged with my Stormblades into his units and did some nice damage but ran out of time before I could move the THead up and use the 5 focus I had on him to force Thaggy to transfer. In the end something happened to Nemo and I lost.....its all a blur.
For the 7th Game the bottom 4 from the Harcore got shifted back into the Sunday Steamroller double game (Because I begged like a little girl).
Game 7 (Mathew, Everblight, Rhyas & Martin, Protectorate of Menoth, pSev) Doubles, Destruction
I played my pNemo and my team mate Thomas playe Magnus the Traitor.
This was a fun game of cat and mouse. With Nemo on 10 focus a turn it was so awesome. Thomas went for the everblight while I took on Sevy. I was lucky enough to make it into his lines and cause insane destruction with minimal casualties but alas Magnus' force got horribly beaten and our first pillar got destroyed by the Raptors. After i had taken the pillar on my sid of the board I split my for into 2 so that I could defend our pillar and hunt done thiers. He hit the pillar with the Raptors and it had 3 damage blocks left. I went after them with the THead and was able to kill them.
In the end I had my THead, Stormclad, Stormblades, Arlan and pNemo left and Mathew had a Seryph and Rhyas left. He conceded the victory.
In the end it was a awesome weekend but I think 1 day events are the way to go with Warmachine as this does not wear you out as much....I was in bed but 20:30 on Sunday night.
