Monday 22 February 2016

SmogCon 5 and damn was it good.

Hey all. Aaron Wilson here (PG_SadPander) and I'm back from SmogCon and yes it has broken me. I'm meant to be in work today but I've got a saw throat, no voice, A headache and have no more life then a Mechanithrall. Would I do it again? I'd book my hotel room now If I could.

Before we breakdown my amazing time at SmogCon, a quick shameless plug. I've joined twitter, so please follow me. I'll be tweeting about everything warmahordes so come follow me at: https://twitter.com/PG_SadPander

Right let's get to the Con and first off - Thank you Mr Webb. I ran tournaments all weekend (Steamroller Friday, Masters B Saturday, IG Finals Sunday) and played some very late games with some people I really wanted to throw down with at stupid hours. It was an amazing Con and all the credit in the world goes to Jon who has put on the best show yet. He should be stupidly proud of his achievement and I know SmogCon is only going on to bigger and better things.

Thursday 

So us PGs had our own PG party Thursday, from 10AM barring setting up a few tables we were able to get some casual games  in with each other. Jason Soles and Micheal Plummer were around and Jason soles asked anyone for a game. I jumped as soon as I heard this and we played, I have to admit I was fangirling pretty hard at this point, Jason had a tier 4 Kreoss3 list and I planned on playing Xerxis2 for the day. Jason was great, really upbeat laid back guy with a stunning army. Game was super swingy, and Soles caught me out with a Righteous Vengeance, warpath trigger and a charge into Xerxis2 from Fire of Salvation. I was camping 2 and by all rights should of died, but he missed one attack leaving me 6 boxes and on fire. The fire didn't kill me and Molik returned the favor to Kreoss, under his array of buffs he dropped Kreoss3. Great game, great guy!

Here's the kill, Molik had 4 buffs on him in the end! It took a charge and a sidestep to get to Kreoss3.


 


After the game I had a good chat with Soles and I can say is I'm confident in the future of Warmachine + Hordes for a long long time. After a chat I checked in, put my stuff in my room and came back down. Micheal Plummer was now looking for a game and I again jumped at the chance, yet again Plummer was a super guy. We played and he really wanted to drop his Issyria list as he played his Thyron list the game before. I just dropped down my same Xerxis2 list, in a super swingy game I manged to take a win. This game was again, SUPER fun. Plummer was the nicest guy I've met in a long time. The rest of the day was spent setting up for the con, rolling mats out, putting scenery on tables and making sure resources were where they needed to be.

Friday 


 


Friday I ran the Steamroller, it was planned to be 128 player but we ended on something like 60 and by final round we had 58. It was a solid day of gaming with only a few minor rules queries and nothing major. The players seemed to really enjoy the event and we got our first top 8 heading into the steamroller finals.

Later Friday evening I got some really great games in, I had list of people I talk to all your year via Facebook or someway but never see so I was driven to get games in with said people. First up was Adam bell, we chat a lot during the year but we've never got a game until now. I put my serious face on and brought my most practiced pairing of Makeda2/Fist, Mr Bell had Feora2/Sevvie1. I was almost certain I would see Foera2 because Sevvie1 has no game into fist while Foera2 has game into both lists. Knowing this I dropped Makeda2, I didn't want to fist to be set alight by the Judicator but speaking to Adam he said the match up isn't as bad as I seemed to think so it's something I will try at some point.

The scenario we rolled was 2 fronts, Adam won the roll and elected to take table side and handed me first turn. Looking at this match up I knew I had no long game. With me running the infantry turn 1 was going to be hemorrhaging my single wound infantry to blast damage and / or fire. Adam cast escort and advanced Feora behind a wall. Judicator killed a few models and set some on fire and his zealots ran and did there whole you can't kill me for a turn thang.

Knowing I had no longevity in this game and Feora being in range of Molik (All be it after trampling) I took my chances. I had my Feat for Makeda2 to grant the boosted attack rolls, Molik needing 10s and Feora was behind the wall. I had puppet strings available, I knew it was like a 40% chance but I felt it wasn't going the chance wasn't going to present it's self again and the turn after this one I would be way behind due to another round of Judicator bombings, as well as reckoner and zealots.





Molik did it, I had a spike of one damage roll due to pupper strings and we got her on my last attack. This game was quick, but it was real good to finally sit down with Adam and meet properly. He was a great guy who clearly knows a lot about the game, thanks again Mr bell.

I got one more game on friday night against Delano Hing who is another pressganger, we speak a lot but as we're not super local to each other we again hadn't played. This game saw Makeda2 take a win over Carver1. It was close all the way and Delano had some poor dice rolls. At this point it was like 2AM, Masters B started at 8am and I was part of the team running it, sleep time!


Saturday 

Saturday saw me run Masters B with a great PG team and lead jugde Jason Enos, the event was superb. We had 118 players for the event and the caliber of play was the top level, I had no pictures of this as I was busy running around answering rules questions or watching the high level of play.

In the evening I had 2 more games lined up against people who follow the same trend of being close, but never close enough. The first game was lined up against Norbert, I'm sure you know him as he's the closest we have to a rockstar in the world of warmahordes. We played Makeda2 into Butcher1 and the game was a ball and swingy on both sides. Norbert took away a scenario win and I can only thank him for a great game against a gentleman of an opponent.

Here's the doctor himself in the thought tank!


 


My second game was against the one and only Lee Mcalpin, not only is this guy a complete bro but he runs the Bleeped up youtube channel, podcast etc etc and if you haven't checked it out? Where have you been! We played a 35 point game which we filmed as a battle report, I through an impromt-to list together and we had a blast. I'll be waiting for the battle report to come be produced and will share it with all you guys on here!  The time was about 1:30am and with the IG finals which I was running with Chris Cawthorne starting at 9AM, it was time to sleep again.

Sunday

The final day is here but I was feeling it, I was tired and my voice was going. Luckily IG finals was only 2 rounds and 4 player, the only part that required any thinking was checking that people had made the 75 points list in the correct way, which Chris was on top of. The tables for the IG finals looked really nice as I sorted them out


 


All the tables paired with the matching scenery looked baller, so huge shout out to Jon again for that. Things got underway and I went and checked out. I came back and Chris being the machine he is and had things under control (sitting between the only 2 tables playing helped) so I went and played some pick up games. I played 2 more games dropping fist both times, but at this I was mentally frazzled and by the last game I was glad that it was the last and looking forward to heading home to my own bed, a bath and some peace and quiet. Here's a photo of my very last game, Fist into Zerkova1.





That was it, the rest of the time was spent helping Jon pack away mats, scenery and clocks. The PP staff announced the winners of masters, IF and steamroller finals and then it was my time go . What an amazing weekend, I wouldn't change it for the world and I'm already fired up to attend next years SmogCon.  The PP staff, the PGs that helped and the amazing community we have as a game came together for the most enjoyable 4 days of the year so far. Thanks again to Jon for putting together for such a show and bring on next year. PG_SadPander over and out.


2 comments:

  1. Did you mean Carver2 when talking about the game above???

    If so details please

    if not which caster was it NDA if carver2

    ReplyDelete