Losing My SmogCon Cherry - Part One

After watching warcasters and warlocks battle it out for three years at our club and listening to the passionate conversations which flew over my head about how a feat with eZargood here could allow an assassination on pPants, I decided it was overdue I bought into it all.

Looking at the various factions it didn’t take me long to settle on the religious fire spouting nutters that were Menoth. The faction basis felt fun, the models look great, especially when uniformly painted but most of all I’d like to think if I was in the Iron Kingdom fighting for honor and power, I’d be a nutty zealot running head first into a Carnivean because a man with a cross laden stick told me to.

After picking up around 70 points of toys and two warcasters (pKreoss and Grand Scrutator Severius) I added a few more units and solos and starting playing a few games. My lists were always varied, wanting to try out all my new toys and not having a clue how to use any of them. This was a big mistake, after a few games I began to wonder what all the Warmahorde fuss was about, I’d had some good games, but in the end it seemed that I just ran forward to be shot to bits and then chopped up before I even had a chance to hurt anyone.

Around this point Smogcon fever had hit the club harder than Kreoss walking into a room full of Errants. I decided I wanted to go, hopefully by then I’d have a love for the game, if not there’d be a few other things I could waste my time on, but it would give me a chance for a geekend with mates.

I didn’t get as many learning games in as I wanted to, and when the Friday morning rolled around I was beginning to think this would be an enjoyable weekend with a system I wasn’t buying into.

I packed my models, half painted after a bit of a burst, packed my dice, cards, templates and books, then as an after thought, clothes and I was ready to go. Picking Rodders up we headed off to Heathrow, and the fabled Iron Arena. When we arrived we went to find out where the action was. The first stop was the Smogpit an ornate, impressively decorated room where row upon row of gaming mats had models vying for flags and objectives with an eye out for a sneaky assassination. At this point I was excited whilst also filled with trepidation. I’d been thrown into the lions den whilst only half knowing which end of the gladius to hold.

Due to the room being full, we moved to a spacious overflow room, which became the Bunkers home for the next 3 days, it was perfect, much more relaxed, a lot of space for games against those I knew would allow me to question rules etc… and also to hang out with when I was giving the dice a break.

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Dressed down and relaxing

The first game was then afoot, playing Rodders he asked which Legion caster I would like to face, only knowing one I uttered the now cursed word, Lileth. Quickly sorting out some 50 point lists we started, and quickly ended, a scenario win to the Legion, no models being killed by Menoth. I could tell Ol’ Fiery wouldn’t be happy if this carried on. Oh well things can surely only get better.

This first list was what I would use for the day. As Roscoe says in a post below, the sage advice I had been given from the veterans was, pick a list stick with it for a good few games no matter if you keep losing. It was :

pKreoss

Crusader

Reckoner

Repenter (being looked after by the Bastion Seneschal)

Vigilant

Max Choir

Max Exemplar Errants with UA

Max Knights Exemplar

Max Exemplar Bastions

Bastion Seneschal

Vassal of Menoth

Paladin of the Order of the Wall