Road to Lock and Load

[Kilcin]

or as I like to call it, “Mission Impossible: Riding the Lightning”. A good friend of mine convinced me I needed to go to Privateer Press’ Lock and Load this year up in Seattle. I figured why not, already been to a Games Day, and I like Privateer Press a lot more then GW. Problem is, I haven’t seriously played since Mark 1, and I got rid of all my models accept my Searforge Commission. For some reason I felt the dwarfs weren’t going to cut it, so I started trading for a Cygnar army with some old stuff I no longer wanted; slowly but surely I’m building up a decent size army. Now I just need to figure out what I want to bring. I want to enter the Tier tournament and the 3 amigo’s tournament but I can’t make up my mind on what Tier list I want to play; most of them sound fun in their own way. On top of that, I need to paint my stuff, which to say would be a miracle in it self; I fully painted one figure in all of last year, and that was an improvement over the previous years. Having kids sure sucks away at your hobby time. So I’ve made arrangements to get a decent number of games in and time to work on miniatures, but I still need to get set on what list to play so I can iron out the kinks before tournament time. I’m currently open to suggestions on a list and if you have any Cygnar you want to trade away, hit me up and I’ll let you know what I go to trade.

I hope to have a test mini done by this weekend to see if the paint scheme in my head actually looks good. I also got the materials to make one of "[url=http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?87911-Poppabear-s-Amazing-Portable-Folding-Terrain-Tables]Poppabear's Amazing Portable Folding Terrain Tables[/url]" (patent pending); one of the people I'm going to Lock and Load with is a co-worker, so we decided to make lunch breaks on Friday's Warmachine lunch breaks. Playing quick games of 15 points to get use to the changes in rules between the different versions and I thought it would be good to bust out one of these tables for us to play on.

Got the table mostly together; sadly I ran into the same issue as Papabear with the hinges needing more room to be screwed in. I was hoping on avoiding that issues because I got smaller hinges, but the screw holes were still to close to the edges of the wood. I played a 15pt game and 35 pt game on Friday and took away a few lessons.

In the 15pt, I had pNemo, Squire, Reinholdt, Thunderhead and Lancer. I faced off against eFeora, Choir, Vassal, Vanquisher and Templar (iirc). In this game I felt I was being too defensive because I was trying to protect the squishy Nemo and I didn't use the Thunderhead correctly. I kept moving my battle group away from the other guy's advance (I was moving to my left around a building and his force was moving around to my right around the same building), but I was not aggressive enough in my movement to swing into his flank. Once his Vanquisher was able to draw a bead on Nemo after clearing the building, I shifted my direction to have my lancer charge into him to prevent him from shooting. The original intention with the Thunderhead was to use Energy pulse to get rid of the choir and vassal so his heavy 'Jacks lost their support. Instead, I charged him into the Templar that was ripping into the lancer. Sadly we had to call the game there due to time constraints. With practice and better grasp of the rules, I hope to be able to play 15pt games in a hour.

In the 35pt game I was running Sloan with Avenger, Defender, Journeyman with Minuteman, 2 squads of minimum long gunners and a squad of rangers; this list qualified for Sloan's fourth tier. I was facing pDoomy, Mulg, Earthborn Dire Troll, Troll Axer, 2 units of Runeshapers, a full unit of Krielstone Bear with Scribes plus it Stone Scribe Elder and Janissa; this list qualified for pDoomy's 4th tier as well. I was really looking forward to this battle because for one, it was in the style of the tournament I wanted to play in, for two, I haven't played against or with Trollbloods before even though I want to start them, and for three, I got to try out Sloan, the Avenger, Minuteman and long gunners. I felt this game went fairly well, I was able to take out all but one Runeshaper and the Krielstone bearer was down to the bearer, scribe and scribe elder; Mulg was pretty beat up too. The Avenger was a bit of a dissapointment, nothing spectacular but at the same time nothing horrible. The Minuteman seems fun and gimmicky and I think having run forward under the control of a Journeyman to harass is good; the Arcane shield brings up the armor to 18 and can get enough focus to jump forward and do some damage. I was able to chip away at the rock that is the troops, but was unable to handle Mulg and EBDT. Those two smashed my Avenger and Defender and it looked like Sloan was going to have to kite the two brutes while making her way to the inert Minuteman who lost his Journeyman earlier to a runeshaper. Sadly, we had to call the game before we could see how well I could kite the dire trolls and how quickly my Rangers could close in and kill pDoomy.

Been thinking of a Kraye tier list with the following: 2x hammersmiths, 2x hunter, Black 13th and 2x rangers. The idea is to use a hammersmith to open up a charge lane for the other one while everything else just shoots things from a distance. I haven't played with calvary before, but increasing the spend of the hammermsiths sounds interesting to me. Ah well, back to working on my minis...

[scadugenga]

Nemo (p) is going to give you an ulcer in a tournament as his feat is useless against warbeasts.

Minuteman, I think, works far better with Kraye, as it moves like light cav, and Kraye has a spell that boosts all ranged attack rolls for his battlegroup.

Sloane will rock the ranged game, you just need to be able to block the melee headed your way.

[Kilcin]

I agree with your points; I haven't had a chance to try Kraye yet, so I didn't want to comment much in regards to him and good jack usage. Also his tier list lends to two hunters and 2 heavies of your choice. I can not worry about hitting tier 4 and just have 2 hunters, minuteman and a heavy. I just liked the idea of two hammersmiths or ironclads to open up charge lanes for each other.Problem with Sloan is that in her tier list I would have to use jacks to screen the melee. This isn't unheard of, it's just her tier list is very shooty so you get in that mind set. A centurion and Sentinel would be good for providing Sloan her protection as she takes out what she wants to. I just need more time to flesh out the best tactics for me with her. Right now I'm just getting a taste of the casters to see which ones I want to spend more time on.

[Kilcin]

Well, I didn't get into the Blood, Sweat and Tier tourney; it was booked up in less then 10 minutes. Ah well...

Played a 20 point game against pSorscha the other day; was a first for me since I use to play Khador and the other Khador player in town liked pIrusk. My opponent had the force from the starter box and I had eNemo, Squire, 2x Firefly, Thunderhead, and 2x Stormsmiths. I felt pretty good about my strategy, as I wheeled away from is Man O Wars towards his caster and two jacks with the entirety of my army, loosing my two Fireflies for his Destroyer and Juggernaut; this opened up a charge avenue for my Thunderhead to get to Sorscha. Normally I'm not one to blame dice (unless it's Blood Bowl) since I believe if you put yourself in a position where one dice roll screws you up, you did something wrong, but the Thunderhead missing Sorscha on three boosted to hit rolls sure makes you wonder what you did to piss off the dice gremlins. Sorscha froze the Thunderhead then walked away as the Man O Wars surrounded and attacked the 'jack. eNemo saw his chance to assassinate the ice queen and moved forward to kill her with a shock and bolt. Sadly the attack left her with two boxes left; at this point we had to call it due to time. Definitely walked away getting a better feel for the game, as well as my opponent who was only playing his second game.

[under]

Well, I didn't get into the Blood, Sweat and Tier tourney; it was booked up in less then 10 minutes. Ah well...

Yeah, that stuff booked up fast. I cancelled my plans to go out there this year because I couldn't book into enough events to make the expence worth it.

Just means I can go to more smaller tournements then at least.

[Tamwulf]

There is a lot more to do at Lock and Load then tournaments!

All the seminars- wanna learn how they do 3D Modeling? Sculpting in the traditional way? How about making a full up playing table from start to finish? You can talk with the guy that actually is responsible for all the fluff of the game. How about all the fantastic illustrations? Those guys will be there too. Don't like a rule or have a suggestion for a new one? You can chat with the rules developer about it. Or maybe you just want to meet the creators of the game?

Iron Arena will be going the entire weekend. Find an opponent, play a game, get a skull. Turn in your skulls for prizes. Great opening gaming! Oh yeah, and the staff of Privateer Press will be playing in Iron Arena too.

Lock and Load has so much more to offer then just the tournaments. You should go just to listen to some of the seminars and talk to the people that actually make the game!

To the OP: Play as many games as you can with as many different opponents as you can and use a timer. Play your army until you don't have to reference the cards for anything. You just know what the range is on that spell, or that the MAT on your Warjack is a 7. When you know your army and what it can and can't do, you'll have the advantage against someone that doesn't.